University  of  California  •  Berkeley 

Gift  of 
THEODORE  H.  KOUNDAKJIAN 


BEING  A   BOY 


BY 


CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER, 

AUTHOR   OF   "MY   SUMMER   IN   A   GARDEN,"    "BACKLOG   STUDIES,' 

"  BADDECK,    AND   THAT   SORT   OF   THING," 

"SAUNTERINGS,"    ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED  BY  "CHAMP." 


BOSTON: 
JAMES    R.  OSGOOD   AND    COMPANY, 

LATE  TICKNOR  &  FIELDS,  AND  FIELDS,  OSGOOD,  &  Co. 
1878. 


COPYRIGHT,  1877. 
BY   JAMES    R.   OSGOOD  &  CO. 


All  rights  reserved. 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS:  WELCH,  BIGELOW,  &  Co. 
CAMBRIDGE. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

I.  BEING  A  BOY i 

II.  THE  BOY  AS  A  FARMER          ....  u 

III.  THE  DELIGHTS  OF  FARMING       .        .       .       .21 

IV.  No  FARMING  WITHOUT  A  BOY        ...  31 
V.  THE  BOY'S  SUNDAY 42 

VI.  THE  GRINDSTONE  OF  LIFE      ....  53 

VII.   FICTION  AND  SENTIMENT 64 

VIII.  THE  COMING  OF  THANKSGIVING     ...  76 

IX.  THE  SEASON  OF  PUMPKIN-PIE    ....  88 

X.  FIRST  EXPERIENCE  OF  THE  WORLD       .        .  97 

XL   HOME  INVENTIONS 109 

XII.  THE  LONELY  FARM-HOUSE     ....  123 

XIII.  JOHN'S  FIRST  PARTY            135 

XIV.  THE  SUGAR  CAMP 150 


VI  CONTENTS. 

XV.  THE  HEART  OF  NEW  ENGLAND         .        .        .163 

XVI.  JOHN'S  REVIVAL 178 

XVII.   WAR 198 

XVIII.  COUNTRY  SCENES 215 

XIX.  A  CONTRAST  TO  THE  NEW-ENGLAND  BOY        .    234 


3/^Sw 


I. 

BEING  A  BOY. 

NE    of    the    best 
things    in    the 
world   to  be  is  a 
boy ;    it    requires 
no   experience,  though  it 
needs  some  practice  to  be 
a  good  one.      The  disad- 
vantage of  the  position  is 
that  it  does  not  last  long 
it   is  soon  over ;   just  as 
you  get  used  to  being  a  boy,  you 
have  to  be  something  else,  with  a 
good   deal   more   work   to   do   and 
not    half  so   much   fun.      And  yet  every   boy 


enough 


2  BEING  A  BOY. 

is  anxious  to  be  a  man,  and  is  very  uneasy 
with  the  restrictions  that  are  put  upon  him  as 
a  boy.  Good  fun  as  it  is  to  yoke  up  the  calves 
and  play  work,  there  is  .not  a  boy  on  a  farm 
but  would  rather  drive  a  yoke  of  oxen  at  real 
work.  What  a  glorious  feeling  it  is,  indeed, 
when  a  boy  is  for  the  first  time  given  the  long 
whip  and  permitted  to  drive  the  oxen,  walking 
by  their  side,  swinging  the  long  lash,  and  shout- 
ing "  Gee,  Buck  ! "  "  Haw,  Golden  !  "  "  Whoa, 
Bright ! "  and  all  the  rest  of  that  remarkable 
language,  until  he  is  red  in  the  face,  and  all 
the  neighbors  for  half  a  mile  are  aware  that 
something  unusual  is  going  on.  If  I  were  a 
boy,  I  am  not  sure  but  I  would  rather  drive 
the  oxen  than  have  a  birthday. 

The  proudest  day  of  my  life  was  one  day 
when  I  rode  on  the  neap  of  the  cart,  and 
drove  the  oxen,  all  alone,  with  a  load  of  apples 
to  the  cider-mill.  I  was  so  little,  that  it  was 


DRIVING   OXEN.  3 

a  wonder  that  I  did  n't  fall  off,  and  get  under 
the  broad  wheels.  Nothing  could  make  a  boy, 
who  cared  anything  for  his  appearance,  feel 
flatter  than  to  be  run  over  by  the  broad  tire 
of  a  cart-wheel.  But  I  never  heard  of  one  who 
was,  and  I  don't  believe  one  ever  will  be.  As 
I  said,  it  was  a  great  clay  for  me,  but  I  don't 
remember  that  the  oxen  cared  much  about  it. 
They  sagged  along  in  their  great  clumsy  way, 
switching  their  tails  in  my  face  occasionally, 
and  now  and  then  giving  a  lurch  to  this  or 
that  side  of  the  road,  attracted  by  a  choice 
tuft  of  grass.  And  then  I  "  came  the  Julius 
Csesar  "  over  them,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  use 
such  a  slang  expression,  a  liberty  I  never 
should  permit  you.  I  don't  know  that  Julius 
Caesar  ever  drove  cattle,  though  he  must  often 
have  seen  the  peasants  from  the  Campagna 
"  haw  "  and  "  gee  "  them  round  the  Forum  (of 
course  in  Latin,  a  language  that  those  cattle 


4  BEING  A  BOY. 

understood  as  well  as  ours  do  English)  ;  but 
what  I  mean  is,  that  I  stood  up  and  "  hollered  " 
with  all  my  might,  as  everybody  does  with  oxen, 
as  if  they  were  born  deaf,  and  whacked  them 
with  the  long  lash  over  the  head,  just  as  the 
big  folks  did  when  they  drove.  I  think  now 
that  it  was  a  cowardly  thing  to  crack  the  pa- 
tient old  fellows  over  the  face  and  eyes,  and 
make  them  wink  in  their  meek  manner.  If  I 
am  ever  a  boy  again  on  a  farm,  I  shall  speak 
gently  to  the  oxen,  and  not  go  screaming  round 
the  farm  like  a  crazy  man  ;  and  I  shall  not  hit 
them  a  cruel  cut  with  the  lash  every  few  minutes, 
because  it  looks  big  to  do  so  and  I  cannot  think 
of  anything  else  to  do.  I  never  liked  lickings 
myself,  and  I  don't  know  why  an  ox  should  like 
them,  especially  as  he  cannot  reason  about  the 
moral  improvement  he  is  to  get  out  of  them. 

Speaking  of  Latin  reminds   me  that  I   once 
taught   my   cows  Latin.     I   don't   mean  that   I 


LATIN  FOR   COWS. 


5 


taught  them  to  read  it,  for  it  is  very  difficult  to 

teach  a  cow  to  read 
Latin  or  any  of  the 
dead  languages,  - 
a  cow   cares   more 
for  her   cud   than 
she  does  for  all 
the     classics 
put       to- 
gether. 


6  BEING  A  BOY. 

But  if  you  begin  early  you  can  teach  a  cow, 
or  a  calf  (if  you  can  teach  a  calf  anything, 
which  I  doubt),  Latin  as  well  as  English.  There 
were  ten  cows,  which  I  had  to  escort  to  and  from 
pasture  night  and  morning.  To  these  cows  I 
gave  the  names  of  the  Roman  numerals,  begin- 
ning with  Unus  and  Duo,  and  going  up  to  De- 
cem.  Decem  was  of  course  the  biggest  cow  of 
the  party,  or  at  least  she  was  the  ruler  of  the 
others,  and  had  the  place  of  honor  in  the  stable 
and  everywhere  else.  I  admire  cows,  and  espe- 
cially the  exactness  with  which  they  define  their 
social  position.  In  this  case,  Decem  could 
"  lick  "  Novem,  and  Novem  could  "  lick  "  Octo, 
and  so  on  down  to  Unus,  who  could  n't  lick 
anybody,  except  her  own  calf.  I  suppose  I 
ought  to  l\ave  called  the  weakest  cow  Una  in- 
stead of  Unus,  considering  her  sex  ;  but  I  did  n't 
care  much  to  teach  the  cows  the  declensions  of 
adjectives,  in  which  I  was  not  very  well  up 


SOCIAL  RANK  OF  COWS.  J 

myself;  and  besides  it  would  be  of  little  use 
to  a  cow.  People  who  devote  themselves  too 
severely  to  study  of  the  classics  are  apt  to  be- 
come dried  up  ;  and  you  should  never  do  any- 
thing to  dry  up  a  cow.  Well,  these  ten  cows 
knew  their  names  after  a  while,  at  least  they 
appeared  to,  and  would  take  their  places  as  I 
called  them.  At  least,  if  Octo  attempted  to  get 
before  Novem  in  going  through  the  bars  (I 
have  heard  people  speak  of  a  "pair  of  bars" 
when  there  were  six  or  eight  of  them),  or  into 
the  stable,  the  matter  of  precedence  was  settled 
then  and  there,  and  once  settled  there  was  no 
dispute  about  it  afterwards.  Novem  either  put 
her  horns  into  Octo's  ribs,  and  Octo  shambled  to 
one  side,  or  else  the  two  locked  horns  and  tried 
the  game  of  push  and  gore  until  one  gave  up. 
Nothing  is  stricter  than  the  etiquette  of  a  party 
of  cows.  There  is  nothing  in  royal  courts  equal 
to  it ;  rank  is  exactly  settled,  and  the  same  in- 


8 


BEING  A   BOY. 


dividuals    always    have    the    precedence.      You 
know  that  at  Windsor   Castle, 
if  the  Royal  Three-Ply  Silver 
Stick    should    happen    to   get 
in   front   of    the    Most    Royal    4| 
Double-and -Twisted     Golden 

Rod,  when  the  court  is  going 

=*          >™* 


in  to  dinner,  something  so  dreadful  would  hap- 
pen that  we  don't  dare   to   think   of  it.     It   is 


ROYAL   PRECEDENCE.  9 

certain  that  the  soup  would  get  cold  while  the 
Golden  Rod  was  pitching  the  Silver  Stick  out 
of  the  Castle  window  into  the  moat,  and  perhaps 
the  island  of  Great  Britain  itself  would  split  in 
two.  But  the  people  are  very  careful  that  it 
never  shall  happen,  so  we  shall  probably  never 
know  what  the  effect  would  be.  Among  cows, 
as  I  say,  the  question  is  settled  in  short  order, 
and  in  a  different  manner  from  what  it  some- 
times is  in  other  .  society.  It  is  said  that  in 
other  society  there  is  sometimes  a  great  scram- 
ble for  the  first  place,  for  the  leadership  as  it 
is  called,  and  that  women,  and  men  too,  fight 
for  what  is  called  position ;  and  in  order  to  be 
first  they  will  injure  their  neighbors  by  telling 
stones  about  them  and  by  backbiting,  which 
is  the  meanest  kind  of  biting  there  is,  not  ex- 
cepting the  bite  of  fleas.  But  in  cow  society 
there  is  nothing  of  this  detraction  in  order  to 
get  the  first  place  at  the  crib,  or  the  farther 


10  BEING  A  BOY. 

stall  in  the  stable.  If  the  question  arises,  the 
cows  turn  in,  horns  and  all,  and  settle  it  with 
one  square  fight,  and  that  ends  it.  I  have  often 
admired  this  trait  in  cows. 

Besides  Latin,  I  used  to  try  to  teach  the 
cows  a  little  poetry,  and  it  is  a  very  good  plan. 
It  does  not  do  the  cows  much  good,  but  it  is 
very  good  exercise  for  a  boy  farmer.  I  used  to 
commit  to  memory  as  good  short  poems  as  I 
could  find  (the  cows  liked  to  listen  to  Thana- 
topsis  about  as  well  as  anything),  and  repeat 
them  when  I  went  to  the  pasture,  and  as  I  drove 
the  cows  home  through  the  sweet  ferns  and 
down  the  rocky  slopes.  It  improves  a  boy's 
elocution  a  great  deal  more  than  driving  oxen. 

It  is  a  fact,  also,  that  if  a  boy  repeats  Tha- 
natopsis  while  he  is  milking,  that  operation 
acquires  a  certain  dignity. 


II. 

THE  BOY  AS  A  FARMER. 

OYS  in  gen- 
eral would 
be  very  good 
farmers  if 
the  current 
notions  about  farm- 
ing were  not  so  very 
different  from  those 
they  entertain.  What 
passes  for  laziness  is 
very  often  an  unwill- 
ingness to  farm  in  a 
particular  way.  For  instance,  some  morning 
in  early  summer  John  is  told  to  catch  the  sorrel 


12  BEING  A   BOY. 

mare,  harness  her  into  the  spring  wagon,  and 
put  in  the  buffalo  and  the  best  whip,  for  father 
is  obliged  to  drive  over  to  the  "  Corners,  to  see  a 
man  "  about  some  cattle,  to  talk  with  the  road 
commissioner,  to  go  to  the  store  for  the  "  women 
folks,"  and  to  attend  to  other  important  business ; 
and  very  likely  he  will  not  be  back  till  sundown. 
It  must  be  very  pressing  business,  for  the  old 
gentleman  drives  off  in  this  way  somewhere 
almost  every  pleasant  day,  and  appears  to  have 
a  great  deal  on  his  mind. 

Meantime,  he  tells  John  that  he  can  play 
ball  after  he  has  done  up  the  chores.  As  if 
the  chores  could  ever  be  "done  up"  on  a  farm. 
He  is  first  to  clean  out  the  horse-stable ;  then  to 
take  a  bill-hook  and  cut  down  the  thistles  and 
weeds  from  the  fence  corners  in  the  home  mow- 
ing-lot and  along  the  road  towards  the  village ; 
to  dig  up  the  docks  round  the  garden  patch  ; 
to  weed  out  the  beet-bed ;  to  hoe  the  early 


DOING   UP  THE   CHORES.  13 

potatoes  ;  to  rake  the  sticks  and  leaves  out  of 
the  front  yard ;  in  short,  there  is  work  enough 
laid  out  for  John  to  keep  him  busy,  it  seems  to 
him,  till  he  comes  of  age ;  and  at  half  an  hour 
to  sundown  he  is  to  go  for  the  cows,  and,  mind 
he  don't  run  'em  ! 

"Yes,  sir,"  says  John,  "is  that  all?" 
"  Well,  if  you  get  through  in  good  season,  you 
might  pick  over   those   potatoes   in  the  cellar ; 
they  are  sprouting ;  they  ain't  fit  to  eat." 

John  is  obliged  to  his  father,  for  if  there  is 
any  sort  of  chore  more  cheerful  to  a  boy  than 
another,  on  a  pleasant  day,  it  is  rubbing  the 
sprouts  off  potatoes  in  a  dark  cellar.  And 
the  old  gentleman  mounts  his  wagon  and  drives 
away  down  the  enticing  road,  with  the  dog 
bounding  along  beside  the  wagon,  and  refusing 
to  come  back  at  John's  call.  John  half  wishes 
he  were  the  dog.  The  dog  knows  the  part  of 
farming  that  suits  him.  He  likes  to  run  along 


14  BEING  A  BOY. 

the  road  and  see  all  the  dogs  and  other  people, 
and  he  likes  best  of  all  to  lie  on  the  store  steps 
at  the  Corners  —  while  his  master's  horse  is 
dozing  at  the  post  and  his  master  is  talking 
politics  in  the  store  —  with  the  other  dogs  of 
his  acquaintance,  snapping  at  mutually  annoying- 
flies  and  indulging  in  that  delightful  dog  gossip 
which  is  expressed  by  a  wag  of  the  tail  and  a 
sniff  of  the  nose.  Nobody  knows  how  many 
dogs'  characters  are  destroyed  in  this  gossip ; 
or  how  a  dog  may  be  able  to  insinuate  suspicion 
by  a  wag  of  the  tail  as  a  man  can  by  a  shrug  of 
the  shoulders,  or  sniff  a  slander  as  a  man  can 
suggest  one  by  raising  his  eyebrows. 

John  looks  after  the  old  gentleman  driving 
off  in  state,  with  the  odorous  buffalo-robe  and 
the  new  whip,  and  he  thinks  that  is  the  sort 
of  farming  he  would  like  to  do.  And  he  cries 
after  his  departing  parent, — 

"Say,  father,  can't  I  go  over  to  the  farther 


SALTING   THE  CATTLE. 


pasture  and  salt  the  cattle  ? "  John 
knows  that  he  could  spend  half  a 
day  very  pleasantly  in  going  over 
to  that  pasture,  looking  for  bird's- 
nests  and  shying  at  red  squirrels 
on  the  way,  and  who  knows  but  he 
might  "  see "  a  sucker  in  the  meadow  brook, 
and  perhaps  get  a  "jab"  at  him  with  a  sharp 
stick.  He  knows  a  hole  where  there  is  a  whop- 
per ;  and  one  of  his  plans  in  life  is  to  go  some 
day  and  snare  him,  and 
bring  him  home  in  tri- 
umph. It  therefore  is 
strongly  impressed  upon 
his  mind  that  the  cattle 
want  salting.  But  his 
father,  without  turning 
his  head,  replies, — 

"  No,  they  don't  need 
salting  any  more  'n  you 


1 6  BEING  A   BOY. 

do ! "  And  the  old  equipage  goes  rattling  down 
the  road,  and  John  whistles  his  disappointment. 
When  I  was  a  boy  on  a  farm,  and  I  suppose  it 
is  so  now,  cattle  were  never  salted  half  enough. 

John  goes  to  his  chores,  and  gets  through 
the  stable  as  soon  as  he  can,  for  that  must  be 
done ;  but  when  it  comes  to  the  out-door  work, 
that  rather  drags.  There  are  so  many  things 
to  distract  the  attention,  —  a  chipmunk  in  the 
fence,  a  bird  on  a  near  tree,  and  a  hen-hawk 
circling  high  in  the  air  over  the  barn-yard. 
John  loses  a  little  time  in  stoning  the  chipmunk, 
which  rather  likes  the  sport,  and  in  watching 
the  bird  to  find  where  its  nest  is ;  and  he  con- 
vinces himself  that  he  ought  to  watch  the  hawk, 
lest  it  pounce  upon  the  chickens,  and  therefore, 
with  an  easy  conscience,  he  spends  fifteen  min- 
utes in  hallooing  to  that  distant  bird,  and  follows 
it  away  out  of  sight  over  the  woods,  and  then 
wishes  it  would  come  back  again.  And  then 


A   BOY'S  NOTION  OF  CHORES.  I/ 

a  carriage  with  two  horses,  and  a  trunk  on 
behind,  goes  along  the  road ;  and  there  is  a  girl 
in  the  carriage  who  looks  out  at  John,  who  is 
suddenly  aware  that  his  trousers  are  patched 
on  each  knee  and  in  two  places  behind  ;  and 
he  wonders  if  she  is  rich,  and  whose  name  is  on 
the  trunk,  and  how  much  the  horses  cost,  and 
whether  that  nice-looking  man  is  the  girl's 
father,  and  if  that  boy  on  the  seat  with  the 
driver  is  her  brother,  and  if  he  has  to  do 
chores  ;  and  as  the  gay  sight  disappears  John 
falls  to  thinking  about  the  great  world  beyond 
the  farm,  of  cities,  and  people  who  are  always 
dressed  up,  and  a  great  many  other  things  of 
which  he  has  a  very  dim  notion.  And  then  a 
boy,  whom  John  knows,  rides  by  in  a  wagon 
with  his  father,  and  the  boy  makes  a  face  at 
John,  and  John  returns  the  greeting  with  a 
twist  of  his  own  visage  and  some  symbolic 
gestures.  All  these  things  take  time.  The 


i8 


BEING  A   BOY. 


work  of  cutting  down  the  big  weeds  gets  on 
slowly,  although  it  is  not  very  disagreeable,  or 
would  not  be  if  it  were  play. 
John  imagines  that  yonder  big 
thistle  is  some  whiskered  villain, 
of  whom  he  has  read  in  a  fairy 
book,  and 
he  advan- 
ces on  him 
with  "Die, 
ruffian !" 
and  slash- 
es off  his 
head  with  \| 
the  bill- 
hook ;  or 
he  charges 
upon  the 

rows  of  mullein-stalks  as  if  they  were  rebels  in 
regimental  ranks,  and  hews  them  down  without 


HEROIC  BUSH-WHACKING.  19 

mercy.  What  fun  it  might  be  if  there  were 
only  another  boy  there  to  help.  But  even  war, 
single  handed,  gets  to  be  tiresome.  It  is  dinner- 
time before  John  finishes  the  weeds,  and  it  is 
cow-time  before  John  has  made  much  impression 
on  the  garden. 

This  garden  John  has  no  fondness  for.  He 
would  rather  hoe  corn  all  day  than  work  in  it. 
Father  seems  to  think  that  it  is  easy  work  that 
John  can  do,  because  it  is  near  the  house ! 
John's  continual  plan  in  this  life  is  to  go  fishing. 
When  there  comes  a  rainy  day,  he  attempts  to 
carry  it  out.  But  ten  chances  to  one  his  father 
has  different  views.  As  it  rains  so  that  work 
cannot  be  done  out  doors,  it  is  a  good  time  to 
work  in  the  garden.  He  can  run  into  the 
house  between  the  heavy  showers.  John  ac- 
cordingly detests  the  garden ;  and  the  only 
time  he  works  briskly  in  it  is  when  he  has  a 
stent  set,  to  do  so  much  weeding  before  the 


20  BEING  A  BOY. 

Fourth  of  July.  If  he  is  spry  he  can  make 
an  extra  holiday  the  Fourth  and  the  day  after. 
Two  days  of  gunpowder  and  ball-playing ! 
When  I  was  a  boy,  I  supposed  there  was  some 
connection  between  such  and  such  an  amount 
of  work  done  on  the  farm  and  our  national  free- 
dom. I  doubted  if  there  could  be  any  Fourth 
of  July  if  my  stent  was  not  done.  I,  at  least, 
worked  for  my  Independence. 


III. 

THE   DELIGHTS   OF  FARMING. 


HERE  are  so 
1   many     bright 

B 

J   spots   in    the 
life  of  a  farm- 
boy,     that     I 
sometimes 
think  I  should   like  to 
live  the  life  over  again  ; 
I  should  almost  be  will- 
ing  to   be   a   girl  if  it 
were  not  for  the  chores. 
There  is  a  great  com- 
fort  to   a    boy    in    the 
amount  of  work  he  can 
get  rid  of  doing.     It  is 


22  BEING  A   BOY. 

sometimes  astonishing  how  slow  he  can  go  on 
an  errand,  he  who  leads  the  school  in  a  race. 
The  world  is  new  and  interesting  to  him,  and 
there  is  so  much  to  take  his  attention  off,  when 
he  is  sent  to  do  anything.  Perhaps  he  could  n't 
explain,  himself,  why,  when  he  is  sent  to  the 
neighbor's  after  yeast,  he  stops  to  stone  the 
frogs  ;  he  is  not  exactly  cruel,  but  he  wants  to 
see  if  he  can  hit  'em.  No  other  living  thing 
can  go  so  slow  as  a  boy  sent  on  an  errand. 
His  legs  seem  to  be  lead,  unless  he  happens  to 
espy  a  woodchuck  in  an  adjoining  lot,  when  he 
gives  chase  to  it  like  a  deer ;  and  it  is  a  curious 
fact  about  boys,  that  two  will  be  a  great  deal 
slower  in  doing  anything  than  one,  and  that 
the  more  you  have  to  help  on  a  piece  of  work 
the  less  is  accomplished.  Boys  have  a  great 
power  of  helping  each  other  to  do  nothing ;  and 
they  are  so  innocent  about-  it,  and  unconscious. 
"  I  went  as  quick  as  ever  I  could,"  says  the 


GOING  FOR    THE   COWS.  23 

boy :  his  father  asks  him  why  he  did  n't  stay 
all  night,  when  he  has  been  absent  three  hours 
on  a  ten-minute  errand.  The  sarcasm  has  no 
effect  on  the  boy. 

Going  after  the  cows  was  a  serious  thing  in 
my  day.  I  had  to  climb  a  hill,  which  was  covered 
with  wild  strawberries  in  the  season.  Could 
any  boy  pass  by  those  ripe  berries  ?  And  then 
in  the  fragrant  hill  pasture  there  were  beds  of 
wintergreen  with  red  berries,  tufts  of  columbine, 
roots  of  sassafras  to  be  dug,  and  dozens  of  things 
good  to  eat  or  to  smell,  that  I  could  not  resist. 
It  sometimes  even  lay  in  my  way  to  climb  a 
tree  to  look  for  a  crow's  nest,  or  to  swing  in 
the  top,  and  to  try  if  I  could  see  the  steeple  of 
the  village  church.  It  became  very  important 
sometimes  for  me  to  see  that  steeple ;  and  in 
the  midst  of  my  investigations  the  tin  horn 
would  blow  a  great  blast  from  the  farm-house, 
which  would  send  a  cold  chill  down  my  back 


24  BEING  A   BOY. 

in  the  hottest  days.  I  knew  what  it  meant. 
It  had  a  frightfully  impatient  quaver  in  it,  not 
at  all  like  the  sweet  note  that  called  us  to  din- 
ner from  the  hay-field.  It  said,  "  Why  on  earth 
does  n't  that  boy  come  home  ?  It  is  almost  dark, 
and  the  cows  ain't  milked ! "  And  that  was 
the  time  the  cows  had  to  start  into  a  brisk 
pace  and  make  up  for  lost  time.  I  wonder  if 
any  boy  ever  drove  the  cows  home  late,  who 
did  not  say  that  the  cows  were  at  the  very  far- 
ther end  of  the  pasture,  and  that  "Old  Brindle  " 
was  hidden  in  the  woods,  and  he  could  n't  find 
her  for  ever  so  long !  The  brindle  cow  is  the 
boy's  scape-goat,  many  a  time. 

No  other  boy  knows  how  to  appreciate  a 
holiday  as  the  farm-boy  does  ;  and  his  best 
ones  are  of  a  peculiar  kind.  Going  fishing  is 
of  course  one  sort.  The  excitement  of  rigging 
up  the  tackle,  digging  the  bait,  and  the  antici- 
pation of  great  luck ;  these  are  pure  pleasures, 


A   HOLIDAY  ADVENTURE. 


enjoyed  because  they  are  rare.      Boys 

who  can   go   a-fishing   any   time   care 

but   little    for   it.      Tramping    all    day 

through  bush  and  brier,  fighting  flies 

and    mosquitoes,    and    branches    that 

tangle  the  line,  and  snags  that  break 

the    hook,   and    returning    home    late 

and    hungry,    with 

wet     feet     and     a 

string    of    speckled 

trout   on    a    willow 

twig,     and     having 

the    family     crowd 

out  at  the  kitchen 

door  to  look  at  'em, 

and     say,     "  Pretty 

well  done   for  you, 

bub  ;  did  you  catch 

that  big  one  your- 

self?"  —  this   is   also    pure   happiness,   the   like 


26  BEING  A   BOY. 

of  which  the  boy  will  never  have  again,  not  if 
he  comes  to  be  selectman  and  deacon  and  to 
"keep  store." 

But  the  holidays  I  recall  with  delight  were 
the  two  days  in  spring  and  fall,  when  we  went 
to  the  distant  pasture-land,  in  a  neighboring 
town,  maybe,  to  drive  thither  the  young  cattle 
and  colts,  and  to  bring  them  back  again.  It 
was  a  wild  and  rocky  upland  where  our  great 
pasture  was,  many  miles  from  home,  the  road 
to  it  running  by  a  brawling  river,  and  up  a 
dashing  brookside  among  great  hills.  What  a 
day's  adventure  it  was !  It  was  like  a  journey 
to  Europe.  The  night  before,  I  could  scarcely 
sleep  for  thinking  of  it,  and  there  was  no  trouble 
about  getting  me  up  at  sunrise  that  morning. 
The  breakfast  was  eaten,  the  luncheon  was 
packed  in  a  large  basket,  with  bottles  of  root 
beer  and  a  jug  of  switchel,  which  packing  I 
superintended  with  the  greatest  interest ;  and 


A   MARCH  OF  TKIUMPff.  2J 

then  the  cattle  were  to  be  collected  for  the 
march,  and  the  horses  hitched  up.  Did  I  shirk 
any  duty  ?  Was  I  slow  ?  I  think  not.  I  was 
willing  to  run  my  legs  off  after  the  frisky  steers, 
who  seemed  to  have  an  idea  they  were  going 
on  a  lark,  and  frolicked  about,  dashing  into  all 
gates,  and  through  all  bars  except  the  right 
ones  ;  and  how  cheerfully  I  did  yell  at  them  ; 
it  was  a  glorious  chance  to  "  holler,"  and  I  have 
never  since  heard  any  public  speaker  on  the 
stump  or  at  camp-meeting  who  could  make 
more  noise.  I  have  often  thought  it  fortunate 
that  the  amount  of  noise  in  a  boy  does  not  in- 
crease in  proportion  to  his  size  ;  if  it  did  the 
world  could  not  contain  it. 

The  whole  day  was  full  of  excitement  and 
of  freedom.  We  were  away  from  the  farm, 
which  to  a  boy  is  one  of  the  best  parts  of  farm- 
ing ;  we  saw  other  farms  and  other  people  at 
work  ;  I  had  the  pleasure  of  marching  along, 


28  BEING  A  BOY. 

and  swinging  my  whip,  past  boys  whom  I  knew, 
who  were  picking  up  stones.  Every  turn  of 
the  road,  every  bend  and  rapid  of  the  river, 
the  great  bowlders  by  the  wayside,  the  water- 
ing-troughs, the  giant  pine  that  had  been  struck 
by  lightning,  the  mysterious  covered  bridge 
over  the  river  where  it  was  most  swift  and 
rocky  and  foamy,  the  chance  eagle  in  the  blue 
sky,  the  sense  of  going  somewhere,  —  why,  as 
I  recall  all  these  things  I  feel  that  even  the 
Prince  Imperial,  as  he  used  to  dash  on  horse- 
back through  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  with  fifty 
mounted  hussars  clattering  at  his  heels,  and 
crowds  of  people  cheering,  could  not  have  been 
as  happy  as  was  I,  a  boy  in  short  jacket  and 
shorter  pantaloons,  trudging  in  the  dust  that 
day  behind  the  steers  and  colts,  cracking  my 
black-stock  whip. 

I  wish  the  journey  would  never  end  ;  but  at 
last,  by  noon,  we  reach  the  pastures  and  turn 


A  LUNCHEON  IN  THE  HILLS. 


20 


in   the   herd  ;    and   after   making 
the  tour  of  the  lots  to  make 
sure  there   are  no   breaks 
in  the  fences,  we  take 
our    luncheon    from 
the  wagon  and  eat  it 
under  the  trees  by  the 
spring.      This  is  the  su- 
preme moment  of  the  day. 
This  is  the  way  to  live  ;  this 


30  BEING  A   BOY. 

is  like  the  Swiss  Family  Robinson,  and  all  the 
rest  of  my  delightful  acquaintances  in  romance. 
Baked  beans,  rye-and-indian  bread  (moist,  re- 
member), doughnuts  and  cheese,  pie,  and  root 
beer.  What  richness  !  You  may  live  to  dine 
at  Delmonico's,  or,  if  those  Frenchmen  do  not 
eat  each  other  up,  at  Philippe's,  in  the  Rue 
Montorgueil  in  Paris,  where  the  dear  old  Thack- 
eray used  to  eat  as  good  a  dinner  as  anybody ; 
but  you  will  get  there  neither  doughnuts,  nor 
pie,  nor  root  beer,  nor  anything  so  good  as  that 
luncheon  at  noon  in  the  old  pasture,  high  among 
the  Massachusetts  hills  !  Nor  will  you  ever,  if 
you  live  to  be  the  oldest  boy  in  the  world, 
have  any  holiday  equal  to  the  one  I  have  de- 
scribed. But  I  always  regretted  that  I  did  not 
take  along  a  fish-line,  just  to  "throw  in"  the 
brook  we  passed.  I  know  there  were  trout 
there. 


IV. 

NO  FARMING  WITHOUT  A  BOY. 

AY    what 
you    will 
about  the 
general 
usefulness  of 
boys,  it  is  my 
impression  that 
a  farm  without 
a     boy    would 
very  soon  come 
to  grief.    What 
the  boy  does  is 
the  life  of  the 
farm.     He    is   the   factotum, 
always    in    demand,    always 


32  BEING  A   BOY. 

expected  to  do  the  thousand  indispensable  things 
that  nobody  else  will  do.  Upon  him  fall  all  the 
odds  and  ends,  the  most  difficult  things.  After 
everybody  else  is  through,  he  has  to  finish  up. 
His  work  is  like  a  woman's,  —  perpetual  wait- 
ing on  others.  Everybody  knows  how  much 
easier  it  is  to  eat  a  good  dinner  than  it  is  to 
wash  the  dishes  afterwards.  Consider  what  a 
boy  on  a  farm  is  required  to  do  ;  things  that 
must  be  done,  or  life  would  actually  stop. 

It  is  understood,  in  the  first  place,  that  he  is 
to  do  all  the  errands,  to  go  to  the  store,  to  the 
post-office,  and  to  carry  all  sorts  of  messages. 
If  he  had  as  many  legs  as  a  centipede,  they 
would  tire  before  night.  His  two  short  limbs 
seem  to  him  entirely  inadequate  to  the  task.  He 
would  like  to  have  as  many  legs  as  a  wheel  has 
spokes,  and  rotate  about  in  the  same  way.  This 
he  sometimes  tries  to  do ;  and  people  who  have 
seen  him  "  turning  cart-wheels  "  along  the  side 


THE  IDLE  FELLOW.  33 

of  the  road  have  supposed  that  he  was  amusing 
himself,  and  idling  his  time  ;  he  was  only  trying 
to  invent  a  new  mode  of  locomotion,  so  that  he 
could  economize  his  legs  and  do  his  errands 
with  greater  despatch.  He  practices  standing 
on  his  head,  in  order  to  accustom  himself  to  any 
position.  Leap-frog  is  one  of  his  methods  of 
getting  over  the  ground  quickly.  He  would 
willingly  go  an  errand  any  distance  if  he  could 
leap-frog  it  with  a  few  other  boys.  He  has  a 
natural  genius  for  combining  pleasure  with  busi- 
ness. This  is  the  reason  why,  when  he  is  sent 
to  the  spring  for  a  pitcher  of  water,  and  the 
family  are  waiting  at  the  dinner-table,  he  is 
absent  so  long;  for  he  stops  to  poke  the  frog 
that  sits  on  the  stone,  or,  if  there  is  a  penstock, 
to  put  his  hand  over  the  spout  and  squirt  the 
water  a  little  while.  He  is  the  one  who  spreads 
the  grass  when  the  men  have  cut  it ;  he  mows 
it  away  in  the  barn  ;  he  rides  the  horse  to  culti- 
vate the  corn,  up  and  down  the  hot,  weary 


34  BEING  A  BOY. 

rows ;  he  picks  up  the  potatoes  when  they  are 
dug ;  he  drives  the  cows  night  and  morning ; 
he  brings  wood  and  water  and  splits  kindling ; 
he  gets  up  the  horse  and  puts  out  the  horse; 
whether  he  is  in  the  house  or  out  of  it,  there  is 
always  something  for  him  to  do.  Just  before 
school  in  winter  he  shovels  paths ;  in  summer 
he  turns  the  grindstone.  He  knows  where  there 
are  lots  of  wintergreens  and  sweet  flag-root,  but 
instead  of  going  for  them,  he  is  to  stay  in  doors 
and  pare  apples  and  stone  raisins  and  pound 
something  in  a  mortar.  And  yet,  with  his  mind 
full  of  schemes  of  what  he  would  like  to  do, 
and  his  hands  full  of  occupations,  he  is  an  idle 
boy  who  has  nothing  to  busy  himself  with  but 
school  and  chores !  He  would  gladly  do  all  the 
work  if  somebody  else  would  do  the  chores,  he 
thinks,  and  yet  I  doubt  if  any  boy  ever  amounted 
to  anything  in  the  world,  or  was  of  much  use  as 
a  man,  who  did  not  enjoy  the  advantages  of  a 
liberal  education  in  the  way  of  chores. 


THE  CIVILIZED  FOX. 


35 


A  boy  on  a  farm  is  nothing  without  his  pets  ; 
at  least  a  dog,  and  probably  rabbits,  chickens, 
ducks,  and  guinea-hens.  A  guinea-hen  suits  a 
boy.  It  is  entirely  useless,  and  makes  a  more 
disagreeable  noise  than  a  Chinese  gong.  I  once 
domesticated  a  young  fox  which  a  neighbor  had 
caught.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  the  fox  can- 
not  be  tamed. 
Jacko  was  a  very 
clever  little  animal, 
and  behaved,  in  all 


36  BEING  A  BOY. 

respects,  with  propriety.  He  kept  Sunday  as 
well  as  any  day,  and  all  the  ten  commandments 
that  he  could  understand.  He  was  a  very  grace- 
ful playfellow,  and  seemed  to  have  an  affection 
for  me.  He  lived  in  a  wood-pile,  in  the  door- 
yard,  and  when  I  lay  down  at  the  entrance  to 
his  house  and  called  him,  he  would  come  out 
and  sit  on  his  tail  and  lick  my  face  just  like  a 
grown  person.  I  taught  him  a  great  many 
tricks  and  all  the  virtues.  That  year  I  had  a 
large  number  of  hens,  and  Jacko  went  about 
among  them  with  the  most  perfect  indifference, 
never  looking  on  them  to  lust  after  them,  as  I 
could  see,  and  never  touching  an  egg  or  a 
feather.  So  excellent  was  his  reputation  that  I 
would  have  trusted  him  in  the  hen-roost  in  the 
dark  without  counting  the  hens.  In  short,  he 
was  domesticated,  and  I  was  fond  of  him  and 
very  proud  of  him,  exhibiting  him  to  all  our 
visitors  as  an  example  of  what  affectionate  treat- 


THE    USE   OF  A   DOG.  37 

ment  would  do  in  subduing  the  brute  instincts. 
I  preferred  him  to  my  dog,  whom  I  had,  with 
much  patience,  taught  to  go  up  a  long  hill  alone 
and  surround  the  cows,  and  drive  them  home 
from  the  remote  pasture.  He  liked  the  fun  of 
it  at  first,  but  by  and  by  he  seemed  to  get  the 
notion  that  it  was  a  "  chore,"  and  when  I  whistled 
for  him  to  go  for  the  cows,  he  would  turn  tail 
and  run  the  other  way,  and  the  more  I  whistled 
and  threw  stones  at  him  the  faster  he  would 
run.  His  name  was  Turk,  and  I  should  have 
sold  him  if  he  had  not  been  the  kind  of  dog 
that  nobody  will  buy.  I  suppose  he  was  not  a 
cow-dog,  but  what  they  call  a  sheep-dog.  At 
least,  when  he  got  big  enough,  he  used  to  get 
into  the  pasture  and  chase  the  sheep  to  death. 
That  was  the  way  he  got  into  trouble,  and  lost 
his  valuable  life.  A  dog  is  of  great  use  on  a 
farm,  and  that  is  the  reason  a  boy  likes  him. 
He  is  good  to  bite  pedlers  and  small  children, 


38  BEING  A   BOY. 

and  run  out  and  yelp  at  wagons  that  pass  by, 
and  to  howl  all  night  when  the  moon  shines. 
And  yet,  if  I  were  a  boy  again,  the  first  thing 
I  would  have  should  be  a  dog ;  for  dogs  are 
great  companions,  and  as  active  and  spry  as  a 
boy  at  doing  nothing.  They  are  also  good  to 
bark  at  woodchuck-holes. 

A  good  dog  will  bark  at  a  woodchuck-hole 
long  after  the  animal  has  retired  to  a  remote 
part  of  his  residence,  and  escaped  by  another 
hole.  This  deceives  the  woodchuck.  Some  of 
the  most  delightful  hours  of  my  life  have  been 
spent  in  hiding  and  watching  the  hole  where 
the  dog  was  not.  What  an  exquisite  thrill  ran 
through  my  frame  when  the  timid  nose  appeared, 
was  withdrawn,  poked  out  again,  and  finally  fol- 
lowed by  the  entire  animal,  who  looked  cau- 
tiously about,  and  then  hopped  away  to  feed  on 
the  clover.  At  that  moment  I  rushed  in,  occu- 
pied the  "  home  base,"  yelled  to  Turk  and  then 


THE  DOG  AND    THE    WOODCHUCK.  39 

danced  with  delight  at  the  combat  between  the 
spunky  woodchuck  and  the  dog.  They  were 
about  the  same  size,  but  science  and  civilization 
won  the  day.  I  did  not  reflect  then  that  it 
would  have  been  more  in  the  interest  of  civiliza- 
tion if  the  woodchuck  had  killed  the  dog.  I  do 
not  know  why  it  is  that  boys  so  like  to  hunt  and 
kill  animals ;  but  the  excuse  that  I  gave  in  this 
case  for  the  murder  was,  that  the  woodchuck  ate 
the  clover  and  trod  it  down  ;  and,  in  fact,  was  a 
woodchuck.  It  was  not  till  long  after  that  I 
learned  with  surprise  that  he  is  a  rodent  mammal, 
of  the  species  Arctomys  monax,  is  called  at  the 
West  a  ground-hog,  and  is  eaten  by  people  of 
color  with  great  relish. 

But  I  have  forgotten  my  beautiful  fox.  Jacko 
continued  to  deport  himself  well  until  the  young 
chickens  came  ;  he  was  actually  cured  of  the 
fox  vice  of  chicken-stealing.  He  used  to  go 
with  me  about  the  coops,  pricking  up  his  ears 


4o 


BEING  A   BOY. 


in  an  intelligent  manner,  and  with  a  demure 
eye  and  the  most  virtuous  droop  of  the  tail. 
Charming  fox  !  If  he  had  held  out  a  little  while 
longer,  I  should  have  put  him  into  a  Sunday- 
school  book.  But  I  began  to  miss  chickens. 
They  disappeared  mysteriously  in  the  night.  I 
would  not  suspect  Jacko 
at  first,  for  he  looked  so 
honest,  and  in  the  day- 
time seemed  to  be  as 
much  interested  in  the 
chickens  as  I  was.  But 
one  morning, 
when  I 


'went  to 
call  him, 
I  found 

feathers  at  the  entrance  of  his  hole,  —  chicken 
feathers.  He  could  n't  deny  it.  He  was  a 
thief.  His  fox  nature  had  come  out  under  se- 


MELANCHOLY  END   OF  THE  FOX.  41 

vere  temptation.  And  he  died  an  unnatural 
death.  He  had  a  thousand  virtues  and  one 
crime.  But  that  crime  struck  at  the  foundation 
of  society.  He  deceived  and  stole ;  he  was  a 
liar  and  a  thief,  and  no  pretty  ways  could  hide 
the  fact.  His  intelligent,  bright  face  could  n't 
save  him.  If  he  had  been  honest,  he  might 
have  grown  up  to  be  a  large,  ornamental  fox. 


V. 

THE   BOY'S   SUNDAY. 


UNDAY     in 
the     New 
England  hill 
towns     used 
to  begin  Sat- 
urday  night 
at  sundown  ; 
and  the  sun  is  lost  to 
sight  behind  the  hills 
there  before  it  has  set 
by  the  almanac.    I  re- 
member that  we  used 
to  go  by  the  almanac 
Saturday     night    and 
by   the   visible  disap- 
pearance    Sunday 
night.      On    Saturday 


KEEPING  SATURDAY  NIGHT.  43 

night  we  very  slowly  yielded  to  the  influences 
of  the  holy  time,  which  were  settling  down 
upon  us,  and  submitted  to  the  ablutions  which 
were  as  inevitable  as  Sunday  ;  but  when  the 
sun  (and  it  never  moved  so  slow)  slid  behind 
the  hills  Sunday  night,  the  effect  upon  the 
watching  boy  was  like  a  shock  from  a  galvanic 
battery  ;  something  flashed  through  all  his  limbs 
and  set  them  in  motion,  and  no  "  play "  ever 
seemed  so  sweet  to  him  as  that  between  sun- 
down and  dark  Sunday  night.  This,  however, 
was  on  the  supposition  that  he  had  conscien- 
tiously kept  Sunday,  and  had  not  gone  in  swim- 
ming and  got  drowned.  This  keeping  of  Satur- 
day night  instead  of  Sunday  night  we  did  not 
very  well  understand  ;  but  it  seemed,  on  the 
whole,  a  good  thing  that  we  should  rest  Sat- 
urday night  when  we  were  tired,  and  play  Sun- 
day night  when  we  were  rested.  I  supposed, 
however,  that  it  was  an  arrangement  made  to 


44  BEING  A  BOY. 

suit  the  big  boys  who  wanted  to  go  "courting" 
Sunday  night.  Certainly  they  were  not  to  be 
blamed,  for  Sunday  was  the  day  when  pretty 
girls  were  most  fascinating,  and  I  have  never 
since  seen  any  so  lovely  as  those  who  used  to 
sit  in  the  gallery  and  in  the  singers'  seats  in 
the  bare  old  meeting-houses. 

Sunday  to  the  country  farmer-boy  was  hardly 
the  relief  that  it  was  to  the  other  members  of  the 
family  ;  for  the  same  chores  must  be  done  that 
day  as  on  others,  and  he  could  not  divert  his 
mind  with  whistling,  hand-springs,  or  sending 
the  dog  into  the  river  after  sticks.  He  had  to 
submit,  in  the  first  place,  to  the  restraint  of 
shoes  and  stockings.  He  read  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament that  when  Moses  came  to  holy  ground 
he  put  off  his  shoes  ;  but  the  boy  was  obliged 
to  put  his  on,  upon  the  holy  day,  not  only  to 
go  to  meeting,  but  while  he  sat  at  home.  Only 
the  emancipated  country-boy,  who  is  as  agile 


CATCHING    THE  HORSE.  45 

on  his  bare  feet  as  a  young  kid,  and  rejoices 
in  the  pressure  of  the  warm  soft  earth,  knows 
what  a  hardship  it  is  to  tie  on  stiff  shoes. 
The  monks  who  put  peas  in  their  shoes  as  a 
penance  do  not  suffer  more  than  the  country- 
boy  in  his  penitential  Sunday  shoes.  I  recall 
the  celerity  with  which  he  used  to  kick  them 
off  at  sundown. 

Sunday  morning  was  not  an  idle  one  for  the 
farmer-boy.  He  must  rise  tolerably  early,  for 
the  cows  were  to  be  milked  and  driven  to  pas- 
ture ;  family  prayers  were  a  little  longer  than 
on  other  days  ;  there  were  the  Sunday-school 
verses  to  be  re-learned,  for  they  did  not  stay 
in  mind  over  night ;  perhaps  the  wagon  was  to 
be  greased  before  the  neighbors  began  to  drive 
by  ;  and  the  horse  was  to  be  caught  out  of  the 
pasture,  ridden  home  bare-back,  and  harnessed. 
This  catching  the  horse,  perhaps  two  of  them, 
was  very  good  fun  usually,  and  would  have 


BEING  A   BOY. 


broken  the  Sunday  if  the  horse  had  not  been 
wanted  for  taking  the  family  to  meeting.  It 
was  so  peaceful  and  still  in  the 
pasture  on  Sunday  morning ; 
but  the  horses  were  never  so 
playful,  the  colts  never  so 


frisky.  Round  and 
round  the  lot  the 
boy  went  calling, 
in  an  entreating 
S  u  n  d  ay  voice, 
"Jock,  jock,  jock, 
jock,"  and  shaking  his  salt-dish,  while  the  horses, 
with  heads  erect,  and  shaking  tails  and  flash- 
ing heels,  dashed  from  corner  to  corner,  and 


RIDING   TO   CHURCH.  47 

gave  the  boy  a  pretty  good  race  before  he  could 
coax  the  nose  of  one  of  them  into  his  dish. 
The  boy  got  angry,  and  came  very  near  saying 
"  dum  it,"  but  he  rather  enjoyed  the  fun,  after  all. 
The  boy  remembers  how  his  mother's  anxiety 
was  divided  between  the  set  of  his  turn-over 
collar,  the  parting  of  his  hair,  and  his  memory 
of  the  Sunday-school  verses  ;  and  what  a  wild 
confusion  there  was  through  the  house  in  get- 
ting off  for  meeting,  and  how  he  was  kept  run- 
ning hither  and  thither,  to  get  the  hymn-book, 
or  a  palm-leaf  fan,  or  the  best  whip,  or  to  pick 
from  the  Sunday  part  of  the  garden  the  bunch 
of  caraway-seed.  Already  the  deacon's  mare, 
with  a  wagon-load  of  the  deacon's  folks,  had 
gone  shambling  past,  head  and  tail  drooping, 
clumsy  hoofs  kicking  up  clouds  of  dust,  while 
the  good  deacon  sat  jerking  the  reins,  in  an 
automatic  way,  and  the  "  women-folks  "  patiently 
saw  the  dust  settle  upon  their  best  summer 


48 


BEING  A  BOY. 


finery.     Wagon    after    wagon    went   along    the 
sandy  road,  and  when  our 
boy's  family  started,  they 
became  part   of  a  long 
procession,  which  sent 
up   a    mile   of  dust 
and  a  pungent,  if 
not    pious    smell 


of  buffalo-robes.     There  were  fiery  horses  in  the 


THE   COUNTRY  MEETING-HOUSE.  49 

train  which  had  to  be  held  in,  for  it  was  neither 
etiquette  nor  decent  to  pass  anybody  on  Sun- 
day. It  was  a  great  delight  to  the  farmer-boy 
to  see  all  this  procession  of  horses,  and  to  ex- 
change sly  winks  with  the  other  boys,  who 
leaned  over  the  wagon-seats  for  that  purpose. 
Occasionally  a  boy  rode  behind,  with  his  back 
to  the  family,  and  his  pantomime  was  always 
something  wonderful  to  see,  and  was  considered 
very  daring  and  wicked. 

The  meeting-house  which  our  boy  remem- 
bers was  a  high,  square  building,  without  a 
steeple.  Within,  it  had  a  lofty  pulpit,  with  doors 
underneath  and  closets  where  sacred  things  were 
kept,  and  where  the  tithing-men  were  supposed 
to  imrjrison  bad  boys.  The  pews  were  square, 
with  seats  facing  each  other,  those  on  one  side 
low  for  the  children,  and  all  with  hinges,  so 
that  they  could  be  raised  when  the  congrega- 
tion stood  up  for  prayers  and  leaned  over  the 
backs  of  the  pews,  as  horses  meet  each  other 


50  BEING  A   BOY. 

across  a  pasture  fence.  After  prayers  these 
seats  used  to  be  slammed  down  with  a  long- 
continued  clatter,  which  seemed  to  the  boys 
about  the  best  part  of  the  exercises.  The  gal- 
leries were  very  high,  and  the  singers'  seats, 
where  the  pretty  girls  sat,  were  the  most  con- 
spicuous of  all.  To  sit  in  the  gallery  away  from 
the  family,  was  a  privilege 
not  often  granted  to  the 
boy.  The  tithing-man  who 
carried  a  long  rod  and  kept 
order  in  the  house,  and  out 
, ,,  doors  at  noontime,  sat  in  the 
gallery,  and  visited  any  boy 
who  whispered  or  found  curious  passages  in  the 
Bible  and  showed  them  to  another  boy.  It 
was  an  awful  moment  when  the  bushy-headed 
tithing-man  approached  a  boy  in  sermon-time. 
The  eyes  of  the  whole  congregation  were  on 
him,  and  he  could  feel  the  guilt  ooze  out  of  his 
burning  face. 


HOW  NOONING    WAS  SPENT.  51 

At  noon  was  Sunday-school,  and  after  that, 
before  the  afternoon  service,  in  summer,  the 
boys  had  a  little  time  to  eat  their  luncheon  to- 
gether at  the  watering-trough,  where  some  of 
the  elders  were  likely  to  be  gathered,  talking 
very  solemnly  about  cattle  ;  or  they  went  over 
to  a  neighboring  barn  to  see  the  calves  ;  or  they 
slipped  off  down  the  roadside  to  a  place  where 
they  could  dig  sassafras  or  the  root  of  the  sweet- 
flag,  —  roots  very  fragrant  in  the  mind  of  many 
a  boy  with  religious  associations  to  this  day. 
There  was  often  an  odor  of  sassafras  in  the 
afternoon  service.  .It  used  to  stand  in  my  mind 
as  a  substitute  for  the  Old  Testament  incense 
of  the  Jews.  Something  in  the  same  way  the 
big  bass-viol  in  the  choir  took  the  place  of 
"  David's  harp  of  solemn  sound." 

The  going  home  from  meeting  was  more 
cheerful  and  lively  than  the  coming  to  it.  There 
was  all  the  bustle  of  getting  the  horses  out  of 


52  BEING  A  BOY. 

the  sheds  and  bringing  them  round  to  the  meet- 
ing-house steps.  At  noon  the  boys  sometimes 
sat  in  the  wagons  and  swung  the  whips  with- 
out cracking  them  :  now  it  was  permitted  to 
give  them  a  little  snap  in  order  to  bring  the 
horses  up  in  good  style ;  and  the  boy  was 
rather  proud  of  the  horse  if  it  pranced  a  little 
while  the  timid  "women-folks"  were  trying  to 
get  in.  The  boy  had  an  eye  for  whatever  life 
and  stir  there  was  in  a  New  England  Sunday. 
He  liked  to  drive  home  fast.  The  old  house 
and  the  farm  looked  pleasant  to  him.  There 
was  an  extra  dinner  when  they  reached  home, 
and  a  cheerful  consciousness  of  duty  performed 
made  it  a  pleasant  dinner.  Long  before  sun- 
down the  Sunday-school  book  had  been  read, 
and  the  boy  sat  waiting  in  the  house  with  great 
impatience  the  signal  that  the  "  day  of  rest "  was 
over.  A  boy  may  not  be  very  wicked,  and  yet 
not  see  the  need  of  "rest."  Neither  his  idea  of 
rest  nor  work  is  that  of  older  farmers. 


VI. 

THE   GRINDSTONE   OF   LIFE. 

F  there  is 
one  thing 
more  than 
another  that 
hardens  the 
lot  of  the 
farmer-boy,  it 
is  the  grind- 
stone. Turn- 
ing grindstones 
to  grind  scythes 
is  one  of  those 
heroic  but  unobtrusive  occupations  for  which 
one  gets  no  credit.  It  is  a  hopeless  kind 


54  BEING  A   BOY. 

of  task,  and,  however  faithfully  the  crank  is 
turned,  it  is  one  that  brings  little  reputation. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  poetry  about  haying 
—  I  mean  for  those  not  engaged  in  it.  One 
likes  to  hear  the  whetting  of  the  scythes  on 
a  fresh  morning  and  the  response  of  the  noisy 
bobolink,  who  always  sits  upon  the  fence  and 
superintends  the  cutting  of  the  dew-laden  grass. 
There  is  a  sort  of  music  in  the  "  swish  "  and 
a  rhythm  in  the  swing  of  the  scythes  in  con- 
cert. The  boy  has  not  much  time  to  attend 
to  it,  for  it  is  lively  business  "spreading" 
after  half  a  dozen  men  who  have  only  to  walk 
along  and  lay  the  grass  low,  while  the  boy 
has  the  whole  hay-field  on  his  hands.  He 
has  little  time  for  the  poetry  of  haying,  as 
he  struggles  along,  filling  the  air  with  the  wet 
mass  which  he  shakes  over  his  head,  and  pick- 
ing his  way  with  short  legs  and  bare  feet  amid 
the  short  and  freshly  cut  stubble. 


HOW  TO    TURN  A    GRINDSTONE.  55 

But  if  the  scythes  cut  well  and  swing  merrily 
it  is  due  to  the  boy  who  turned  the  grindstone. 
O,  it  was  nothing  to  do,  just  turn  the  grind- 
stone a  few  minutes  for  this  and  that  one  before 
breakfast ;  any  "  hired  man  "  was  authorized  to 
order  the  boy  to  turn  the  grindstone.  How  they 
did  bear  on,  those  great  strapping  fellows  !  Turn, 
turn,  turn,  what  a  weary  go  it  was.  For  my 
part,  I  used  to  like  a  grindstone  that  "  wabbled  " 
a  good  deal  on  its  axis,  for  when  I  turned  it 
fast,  it  put  the  grinder  on  a  lively  lookout  for 
cutting  his  hands,  and  entirely  satisfied  his  de- 
sire that  I  should  "turn  faster."  It  was  some 
sport  to  make  the  water  fly  and  wet  the  grinder, 
suddenly  starting  up  quickly  and  surprising  him 
when  I  was  turning  very  slowly.  I  used  to 
wish  sometimes  that  I  could  turn  fast  enough  to 
make  the  stone  fly  into  a  dozen  pieces.  Steady 
turning  is  what  the  grinders  like,  and  any  boy 
who  turns  steadily,  so  as  to  give  an  even  mo- 


56  BEING  A  BOY. 

tion  to  the  stone,  will  be  much  praised,  and  will 
be  in  demand.  I  advise  any  boy  who  desires 
to  do  this  sort  of  work  to  turn  steadily.  If  he 
does  it  by  jerks  and  in  a  fitful  manner,  the 
"  hired  men  "  will  be  very  apt  to  dispense  with 
his  services  and  turn  the  grindstone  for  each 
other. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  disagreeable  tasks  of 
the  boy  farmer,  and,  hard  as  it  is,  I  do  not 
know  why  it  is  supposed  to  belong  especially 
to  childhood.  But  it  is,  and  one  of  the  certain 
marks  that  second  childhood  has  come  to  a 
man  on  a  farm  is  that  he  is  asked  to  turn  the 
grindstone  as  if  he  were  a  boy  again.  When 
the  old  man  is  good  for  nothing  else,  when  he 
can  neither  mow  nor  pitch,  and  scarcely  "  rake 
after,"  he  can  turn  grindstone,  and  it  is  in  this 
way  that  he  renews  his  youth.  "  Ain't  you 
ashamed  to  have  your  granther  turn  the  grind- 
stone ? "  asks  the  hired  man  of  the  boy.  So 


A   BOY  HAS  NO    TIME   OF  HIS  OWN.         57 

the  boy  takes  hold  and  turns  himself,  till  his 
little  back  aches.  When  he  gets  older  he  wishes 
he  had  replied,  "  Ain't  you  ashamed  to  make 
either  an  old  man  or  a  little  boy  do  such  hard 
grinding  work  ? " 

Doing  the  regular  work  of  this  world  is  not 
much,  the  boy  thinks,  but  the  wearisome  part 
is  the  waiting  on  the  people  who  do  the  work. 
And  the  boy  is  not  far  wrong.  This  is  what 
women  and  boys  have  to  do  on  a  farm,  wait 
upon  everybody  who  "  works."  The  trouble 
with  the  boy's  life  is  that  he  has  no  time  that 
he  can  call  his  own.  He  is,  like  a  barrel  of 
beer,  always  on  draft.  The  men-folks,  having 
worked  in  the  regular  hours,  lie  down 
and  rest,  stretch  themselves  idly  in 
the  shade  at  noon,  or  lounge  about 
after  supper.  Then  the  boy,  who  has 
done  nothing  all  day  but  turn  grind- 
stone,  and  spread  hay,  and  rake  after,  and  run 


58  BEING  A  BOY. 

his  little  legs  off  at  everybody's  beck  and  call, 
is  sent  on  some  errand  or  some  household  chore, 
in  order  that  time  shall  not  hang  heavy  on  his 
hands.  The  boy  comes  nearer  to  perpetual 
motion  than  anything  else  in  nature,  only  it  is 
not  altogether  a  voluntary  motion.  The  time 
that  the  farm-boy  gets  for  his  own  is  usually 
at  the  end  of  a  stent.  We  used  to  be  given  a 
certain  piece  of  corn  to  hoe,  or  a  certain  quan- 
tity of  corn  to  husk  in  so  many  days.  If  we 
finished  the  task  before  the  time  set,  we  had 
the  remainder  to  ourselves.  In  my  day  it  used 
to  take  very  sharp  work  to  gain  anything,  but 
we  were  always  anxious  to  take  the  chance.  I 
think  we  enjoyed  the  holiday  in  anticipation 
quite  as  much  as  we  did  when  we  had  won  it. 
Unless  it  was  training-day,  or  Fourth  of  July, 
or  the  circus  was  coming,  it  was  a  little  diffi- 
cult to  find  anything  big  enough  to  fill  our 
anticipations  of  the  fun  we  would  have  in  the 


GOING    TO  STORE.  59 

day  or  the  two  or  three  days  we  had  earned. 
We  did  not  want  to  waste  the  time  on  any 
common  thing.  Even  going  fishing  in  one  of 
the  wild  mountain  brooks  was  hardly  up  to 
the  mark,  for  we  could  sometimes  do  that  on 
a  rainy  day.  Going  down  to  the  village  store 
was  not  very  exciting,  and  was  on  the  whole  a 
waste  of  our  precious  time.  Unless  we  could  get 
out  our  military  company,  life  was  apt  to  be  a 
little  blank,  even  on  the  holidays  for  which  we 
had  worked  so  hard.  If  you  went  to  see  an- 
other boy,  he  was  probably  at  work  in  the  hay- 
field  or  the  potato-patch,  and  his  father  looked 
at  you  askance.  You  sometimes  took  hold  and 
helped  him,  so  that  he  could  go  and  play  with 
you ;  but  it  was  usually  time  to  go  for  the 
cows  before  the  task  was  done.  The  fact  is,  or 
used  to  be,  that  the  amusements  of  a  boy  in 
the  country  are  not  many.  Snaring  "  suckers  " 
out  of  the  deep  meadow  brook  used  to  be  about 


60  BEING  A   BOY. 

as  good  as  any  that  I  had.  The  North  Amer- 
ican sucker  is  not  an  engaging  animal  in  all 
respects  ;  his  body  is  comely  enough,  but  his 
mouth  is  puckered  up  like  that  of  a  purse.  The 
mouth  is  not  formed  for  the  gentle  angle-worm 
nor  the  delusive  fly  of  the  fishermen.  It  is 
necessary  therefore  to  snare  the  fish,  if  you  want 
him.  In  the  sunny  days  he  lies  in  the  deep 
pools,  by  some  big  stone  or  near  the  bank,  pois- 
ing himself  quite  still,  or  only  stirring  his  fins 
a  little  now  and  then,  as  an  elephant  moves 
his  ears.  He  will  lie  so  for  hours,  or  rather 
float,  in  perfect  idleness  and  apparent  bliss. 
The  boy  who  also  has  a  holiday,  but  cannot 
keep  still,  comes  along  and  peeps  over  the  bank. 
"  Golly,  ain't  he  a  big  one ! "  Perhaps  he  is 
eighteen  inches  long,  and  weighs  two  or  three 
pounds.  He  lies  there  among  his  friends,  little 
fish  and  big  ones,  quite  a  school  of  them,  per- 
haps a  district  school,  that  only  keeps  in  warm 


THE   GENTLE  SUCKER  AT  HOME. 


6l 


days  in  the  summer.  The  pupils  seem  to  have 
little  to  learn,  except  to  balance  themselves 
and  to  turn  gracefully  with  a  flirt  of  the  tail. 

Not  much  is  taught 
but  "  deportment," 
and  some  of  the  old 
suckers  are  perfect 


Turveydrops  in  that. 
The  boy  is  armed 
with  a  pole  and  a 


62  BEING  A   BOY. 

stout  line,  and  on  the  end  of  it  a  brass  wire 
bent  into  a  hoop,  which  is  a  slipnoose,  and 
slides  together  when  anything  is  caught  in  it. 
The  boy  approaches  the  bank  and  looks  over. 
There  he  lies,  calm  as  a  whale.  The  boy  de> 
vours  him  with  his  eyes.  He  is  almost  too 
much  excited  to  drop  the  snare  into  the  water 
without  making  a  noise.  A  puff  of  wind  comes 
and  ruffles  the  surface,  so  that  he  cannot  see 
the  fish.  It  is  calm  again,  and  there  he  still  is, 
moving  his  fins  in  peaceful  security.  The  boy 
lowers  his  snare  behind  the  fish  and  slips  it 
along.  He  intends  to  get  it  around  him  just 
back  of  the  gills  and  then  elevate  him  with  a 
sudden  jerk.  It  is  a  delicate  operation,  for  the 
snare  will  turn  a  little,  and  if  it  hits  the  fish 
he  is  off.  However,  it  goes  well,  the  wire  is 
almost  in  place,  when  suddenly  the  fish,  as  if 
he  had  a  warning  in  a  dream,  for  he  appears  to 
see  nothing,  moves  his  tail  just  a  little,  glides 


SNARING  A   SUCKER.  63 

out  of  the  loop,  and  with  no  seeming  appearance 
of  frustrating  any  one's  plans,  lounges  over  to 
the  other  side  of  the  pool  ;  and  there  he  re- 
poses just  as  if  he  was  not  spoiling  the  boy's 
holiday.  This  slight  change  of  base  on  the 
part  of  the  fish  requires  the  boy  to  reorganize 
his  whole  campaign,  get  a  new  position  on  the 
bank,  a  new  line  of  approach,  and  patiently 
wait  for  the  wind  and  sun  before  he  can  lower 
his  line.  This  time,  cunning  and  patience  are 
rewarded.  The  hoop  encircles  the  unsuspect- 
ing fish.  The  boy's  eyes  almost  start  from  his 
head  as  he  gives  a  tremendous  jerk,  and  feels 
by  the  dead-weight  that  he  has  got  him  fast. 
Out  he  comes,  up  he  goes  in  the  air,  and  the 
boy  runs  to  look  at  him.  In  this  transaction, 
however,  no  one  can  be  more  surprised  than 
the  sucker. 


VII. 

FICTION   AND  SENTIMENT. 


HEboyfarmer 


does  not  ap- 
p  r  e  c  i  a  t  e 
school  vaca- 
tions as  high- 
ly as  his 
city  cousin. 
When  school 
keeps  he  has 
only  to  "do 
chores  and 
go  to  school," 
but  between 
terms  there 


PICKING  STONES.  65 

are  a  thousand  things  on  the  farm  that  have  been 
left  for  the  boy  to  do.  Picking  up  stones  in  the 
pastures  and  piling  them  in  heaps  used  to  be  one 
of  them.  Some  lots  appeared  to  grow  stones, 
or  else  the  sun  every  year  drew  them  to  the 
surface,  as  it  coaxes  the  round  cantelopes  out 
of  the  soft  garden  soil ;  it  is  certain  that  there 
were  fields  that  always  gave  the  boys  this  sort 
of  fall  work.  And  very  lively  work  it  was  on 
frosty  mornings  for  the  barefooted  boys,  who 
were  continually  turning  up  the  larger  stones 
in  order  to  stand  for  a  moment  in  the  warm 
place  that  had  been  covered  from  the  frost. 
A  boy  can  stand  on  one  leg  as  well  as  a  Hol- 
land stork ;  and  the  boy  who  found  a  warm 
spot  for  the  sole  of  his  foot  was  likely  to  stand 
in  it  until  the  words,  "  Come,  stir  your  stumps," 
broke  in  discordantly  upon  his  meditations.  For 
the  boy  is  very  much  given  to  meditations.  If 
he  had  his  way  he  would  do  nothing  in  a 


66  BEING  A   BOY. 

hurry  ;  he  likes  to  stop  and  think  about  things, 
and  enjoy  his  work  as  he  goes  along.  He 
picks  up  potatoes  as  if  each  one  was  a  lump 
of  gold  just  turned  out  of  the  dirt,  and  requir- 
ing careful  examination. 

Although  the  country  boy  feels  a  little  joy 
when  school  breaks  up  (as  he  does  when  any- 
thing breaks  up,  or  any  change  takes  place), 
since  he  is  released  from  the  discipline  and 
restraint  of  it,  yet  the  school  is  his  opening 
into  the  world,  —  his  romance.  Its  opportuni- 
ties for  enjoyment  are  numberless.  He  does 
not  exactly  know  what  he  is  set  at  books  for ; 
he  takes  spelling  rather  as  an  exercise  for  his 
lungs,  standing  up  and  shouting  out  the  words 
with  entire  recklessness  of  consequences ;  he 
grapples  doggedly  with  'rithmetic  and  geogra- 
phy as  something  that  must  be  cleared  out  of 
his  way  before  recess,  but  not  at  all  with  the 
zest  he  would  dig  a  woodchuck  out  of  his  hole. 


FUN  AT  RECESS.  6/ 

But  recess !  Was  ever  any  enjoyment  so  keen 
as  that  with  which  a  boy  rushes  out  of  the 
school-house  door  for  the  ten  minutes  of  recess  ? 
He  is  like  to  burst  with  animal  spirits  ;  he  runs 
like  a  deer  ;  he  can  nearly  fly ;  and  he  throws 
himself  into  play  with  entire  self-forgetfulness, 
and  an  energy  that  would  overturn  the  world 
if  his  strength  were  proportioned  to  it.  For 
ten  minutes  the  world  is  absolutely  his  ;  the 
weights  are  taken  off,  restraints  are  loosed,  and 
he  is  his  own  master  for  that  brief  time,  —  as 
he  never  again  will  be  if  he  lives  to  be  as  old 
as  the  king  of  Thule,  and  nobody  knows  how 
old  he  was.  And  there  is  the  nooning,  a  solid 
hour,  in  which  vast  projects  can  be  carried  out 
which  have  been  slyly  matured  during  the 
school-hours  ;  expeditions  are  undertaken,  wars 
are  begun  between  the  Indians  on  one  side 
and  the  settlers  on  the  other,  the  military  com- 
pany is  drilled  (without  uniforms  or  arms),  or 


68  BEING  A  BOY. 

games  are  carried  on  which  involve  miles  of 
running,  and  an  expenditure  of  wind  sufficient 
to  spell  the  spelling-book  through  at  the  high- 
est pitch. 

Friendships  are  formed,  too,  which  are  fer- 
vent if  not  enduring,  and  enmities  contracted 
which  are  frequently  "taken  out"  on  the  spot, 
after  a  rough  fashion  boys  have  of  settling  as 
they  go  along ;  cases  of  long  credit,  either  in 
words  or  trade,  are  not  frequent  with  boys ; 
boot  on  jack-knives  must  be  paid  on  the  nail ; 
and  it  is  considered  much  more  honorable  to 
out  with  a  personal  grievance  at  once,  even  if 
the  explanation  is  made  with  the  fists,  than  to 
pretend  fair,  and  then  take  a  sneaking  revenge 
on  some  concealed  opportunity.  The  country 
boy  at  the  district  school  is  introduced  into  a 
wider  world  than  he  knew  at  home,  in  many 
ways.  Some  big  boy  brings  to  school  a  copy 
of  the  Arabian  Nights,  a  dog-eared  copy,  with 


THE  ARABIAN  NIGHTS  IN  A  BARN.  69 

cover,  title-page,  and  the  last  leaves  missing, 
which  is  passed  around,  and  slyly  read  under 
the  desk,  and  perhaps  comes  to  the  little  boy 
whose  parents  disapprove  of  novel-reading,  and 
have  no  work  of  fiction  in  the  house  except  a 
pious  fraud  called  "  Six  Months  in  a  Convent," 
and  the  latest  comic  almanac.  The  boy's  eyes 
dilate  as  he  steals  some  of  the  treasures  out  of 
the  wondrous  pages,  and  he  longs  to  lose  him- 
self in  the  land  of  enchantment  open  before 
him.  He  tells  at  home  that  he  has  seen  the 
most  wonderful  book  that  ever  was,  and  a  big 
boy  has  promised  to  lend  it  to  him.  "  Is  it  a 
true  book,  John  ? "  asks  the  grandmother ;  "  be- 
cause if  it  is  n't  true,  it  is  the  worst  thing  that 
a  boy  can  read."  (This  happened  years  ago.) 
John  cannot  answer  as  to  the  truth  of  the 
book,  and  so  does  not  bring  it  home ;  but 
he  borrows  it,  nevertheless,  and  conceals  it  in 
the  barn,  and  lying  in  the  hay-mow  is  lost  in 


BEING  A  BOY. 


its   enchantments   many  an   odd   hour  when  he 
is  supposed  to  be 


There    were 
no  chores  in 
the    Arabian 
Nights;    the    boy 
there  had  but  to  rub 
the  ring  and  summon 
a  genius,  who  would  feed 
the  calves  and  pick  up  chips 
and  bring  in  wood  in  a  min- 
ute.     It  was  through    this 
emblazoned    portal    that 
the  boy  walked  into  the 
world  of  books,  which 
he  soon  found  was 
larger  than  his 
own,  and  rilled 
with  people  he 
longed  to  know.  / 


THE  FIRST  SWEET  GIRL.  Jl 

And  the  farmer-boy  is  not  without  his  sen- 
timent and  his  secrets,  though  he  has  never 
been  at  a  children's  party  in  his  life,  and,  in 
fact,  never  has  heard  that  children  go  into  so- 


ciety  when  they  are  seven,  and  give  regular 
wine-parties  when  they  reach  the  ripe  age  of 
nine.  But  one  of  his  regrets  at  having  the 
summer  school  close  is  dimly  connected  with  a 
little  girl,  whom  he  does  not  care  much  for,  — 


72  BEING  A   BOY. 

\ 

would  a  great  deal  rather  play  with  a  boy  than 
with  her  at  recess,  —  but  whom  he  will  not  see 
again  for  some  time,  —  a  sweet  little  thing, 
who  is  very  friendly  with  John,  and  with  whom 
he  has  been  known  to  exchange  bits  of  candy 
wrapped  up  in  paper,  and  for  whom  he  cut  in 
two  his  lead-pencil,  and  gave  her  half.  At  the 
last  day  of  school  she  goes  part  way  with 
John,  and  then  he  turns  and  goes  a  longer 
distance  towards  her  home,  so  that  it  is  late 
when  he  reaches  his  own.  Is  he  late  ?  He 
did  n't  know  he  was  late,  he  came  straight 
home  when  school  was  dismissed,  only  going  a 
little  way  home  with  Alice  Linton  to  help  her 
carry  her  books.  In  a  box  in  his  chamber, 
which  he  has  lately  put  a  padlock  on,  among 
fish-hooks  and  lines  and  bait-boxes,  odd  pieces 
of  brass,  twine,  early  sweet  apples,  pop-corn, 
beech-nuts,  and  other  articles  of  value,  are 
some  little  billets-doux,  fancifully  folded,  three- 


SCHOOL   BILLET-DOUX.  73 

cornered  or  otherwise,  and  written,  I  will  war- 
rant, in  red  or  beautifully  blue  ink.  These  lit- 
tle notes  are  parting  gifts  at  the  close  of  school, 
and  John,  no  doubt,  gave  his  own  in  exchange 
for  them,  though  the  writing  was  an  immense 
labor,  and  the  folding  was  a  secret  bought  of 
another  boy  for  a  big  piece  of  sweet  flag-root 
baked  in  sugar,  a  delicacy  which  John  used  to 
carry  in  his  pantaloons-pocket  until  his  pocket 
was  in  such  a  state  that  putting  his  fingers 
into  them  was  about  as  good  as  dipping  them 
into  the  sugar-bowl  at  home.  Each  precious 
note  contained  a  lock  or  curl  of  girl's  hair,  — 
a  rare  collection  of  all  colors,  after  John  had 
been  in  school  many  terms,  and  had  passed 
through  a  great  many  parting  scenes,  —  black, 
brown,  red,  tow-color,  and  some  that  looked 
like  spun  gold  and  felt  like  silk.  The  senti- 
ment contained  in  the  notes  was  that  which 
was  common  in  the  school,  and  expressed  a 


74  BEING  A   BOY. 

melancholy  foreboding  of  early  death,  and  a 
touching  desire  to  leave  hair  enough  this  side 
the  grave  to  constitute  a  sort  of  strand  of 
remembrance.  With  little  variation,  the  poetry 
that  made  the  hair  precious  was  in  the  words, 
and,  as  a  Cockney  would  say,  set  to  the  hair, 
following :  — 

"  This  lock  of  hair, 

Which  I  did  wear, 
Was  taken  from  my  head  ; 

When  this  you  see, 

Remember  me, 
Long  after  I  am  dead." 

John  liked  to  read  these  verses,  which  always 
made  a  new  and  fresh  impression  with  each  lock 
of  hair,  and  he  was  not  critical ;  they  were  for 
him  vehicles  of  true  sentiment,  and  indeed  they 
were  what  he  used  when  he  enclosed  a  clip  of 
his  own  sandy  hair  to  a  friend.  And  it  did 
not  occur  to  him  until  he  was  a  great  deal 
older  and  less  innocent  to  smile  at  them.  John 
felt  that  he  would  sacredly  keep  every  lock  of 


HEART  TREASURES.  75 

hair  intrusted  to  him,  though  death  should 
come  on  the  wings  of  cholera  and  take  away 
every  one  of  these  sad,  red-ink  correspondents. 
When  John's  big  brother  one  day  caught  sight 
of  these  treasures,  and  brutally  told  him  that 
he  "  had  hair  enough  to  stuff  a  horse  collar," 
John  was  so  outraged  and  shocked,  as  he  should 
have  been,  at  this  rude  invasion  of  his  heart, 
this  coarse  suggestion,  this  profanation  of  his 
most  delicate  feeling,  that  he  was  only  kept 
from  crying  by  the  resolution  to  "lick"  his 
brother  as  soon  as  ever  he  got  big  enough. 


VIII. 

THE  COMING  OF  THANKSGIVING. 


NE  of  the 
bestthings 
in  farming 
is    gather- 
£  ing     the     chest- 
nuts,   hickory- 
nuts,    butternuts, 
and  even   beech- 
nuts, in  the  late 
fall,  after  the  frosts 
have  cracked  the 
husks     and     the 
high  winds  have 
shaken  them,  and 
the  colored  leaves 


NUTTING.  77 

have  strewn  the  ground.  On  a  bright  October 
day,  when  the  air  is  full  of  golden  sunshine, 
there  is  nothing  quite  so  exhilarating  as  going 
nutting.  Nor  is  the  pleasure  of  it  altogether 
destroyed  for  the  boy  by  the  consideration  that 
he  is  making  himself  useful  in  obtaining  sup- 
plies for  the  winter  household.  The  getting-in 
of  potatoes  and  corn  is  a  different  thing ;  that 
is  the  prose,  but  nutting  is  the  poetry,  of  farm 
life.  I  am  not  sure  but  the  boy  would  find  it 
very  irksome,  though,  if  he  were  obliged  to  work 
at  nut-gathering  in  order  to  procure  food  for 
the  family.  He  is  willing  to  make  himself  use- 
ful in  his  own  way.  The  Italian  boy,  who 
works  day  after  day  at  a  huge  pile  of  pine- 
cones,  pounding  and  cracking  them  and  taking 
out. the  long  seeds,  which  are  sold  and  eaten 
as  we  eat  nuts  (and  which  are  almost  as  good 
as  pumpkin-seeds,  another  favorite  with  the 
Italians),  probably  does  not  see  the  fun  of  nut- 


78  .    BEING  A   BOY. 

ting.  Indeed,  if  the  farmer-boy  here  were  set 
at  pounding  off  the  walnut-shucks  and  opening 
the  prickly  chestnut-burs  as  a  task,  he  would 
think  himself  an  ill-used  boy.  What  a  hard- 
ship the  prickles  in  his  fingers  would  be!  But 
now  he  digs  them  out  with  his  jack-knife,  and 
enjoys  the  process  on  the  whole.  The  boy  is 
willing  to  do  any  amount  of  work  if  it  is  called 
play. 

In  nutting,  the  squirrel  is  not  more  nimble 
and  industrious  than  the  boy.  I  like  to  see  a 
crowd  of  boys  swarm  over  a  chestnut-grove ; 
they  leave  a  desert  behind  them  like  the  seven- 
teen-years  locusts.  To  climb  a  tree  and  shake 
it,  to  club  it,  to  strip  it  of  its  fruit  and  pass  to 
the  next,  is  the  sport  of  a  brief  time.  I  have 
seen  a  legion  of  boys  scamper  over  our  grass- 
plot  under  the  chestnut-trees,  each  one  as  ac- 
tive as  if  he  were  a  new  patent  picking- 
machine,  sweeping  the  ground  clean  of  nuts, 


THE  MARTIAL    TURKEY.  79 

and  disappear  over  the  hill  before  I  could  go 
to  the  door  and  speak  to  them  about  it.  In- 
deed, I  have  noticed  that  boys  don't  care  much 
for  conversation  with  the  owners  of  fruit-trees. 
They  could  speedily  make  their  fortunes  if  they 
would  work  as  rapidly  in  cotton-fields.  I  have 
never  seen  anything  like  it  except  a  flock  of 
turkeys  removing  the  grasshoppers  from  a  piece 
of  pasture. 

Perhaps  it  is  not  generally  known  that  we 
get  the  idea  of  some  of  our  best  military  ma- 
noeuvres from  the  turkey.  The  deploying  of 
the  skirmish-line  in  advance  of  an  army  is  one 
of  them.  The  drum-major  of  our  holiday  militia 
companies  is  copied  exactly  from  the  turkey 
gobbler ;  he  has  the  same  splendid  appearance, 
the  same  proud  step,  and  the  same  martial 
aspect.  The  gobbler  does  not  lead  his  forces 
in  the  field,  but  goes  behind  them,  like  the 
colonel  of  a  regiment,  so  that  he  can  see 


80  BEING  A   BOY. 

every  part  of  the  line  and  direct  its  move- 
ments. This  resemblance  is  one  of  the  most 
singular  things  in  natural  history.  I  like  to 
watch  the  gobbler  manoeuvring  his  forces  in  a 
grasshopper-field.  He  throws  out  his  company 
of  two  dozen  turkeys  in  a  crescent-shaped  skir- 
mish-line, the  number  disposed  at  equal  dis- 
tances, while  he  walks  majestically  in  the  rear. 
They  advance  rapidly,  picking  right  and  left, 
with  military  precision,  killing  the  foe  and  dis- 
posing of  the  dead  bodies  with  the  same  peck. 
Nobody  has  yet  discovered  how  many  grass- 
hoppers a  turkey  will  hold  ;  but  he  is  very 
much  like  a  boy  at  a  Thanksgiving  dinner,  — 
he  keeps  on  eating  as  long  as  the  supplies 
last.  The  gobbler,  in  one  of  these  raids,  does 
not  condescend  to  grab  a  single  grasshopper, 
—  at  least,  not  while  anybody  is  watching  him. 
But  I  suppose  he  makes  up  for  it  when  his 
dignity  cannot  be  injured  by  having  spectators 


THE  AWFUL   FESTIVAL.  81 

of  his    voracity  ;    perhaps    he    falls    upon    the 
grasshoppers  when  they  are  driven   into  a  cor- 
ner of  the  field.     But  he  is  only  fattening  him- 
self for  destruction  ;   like  all  greedy  persons,  he 
comes  to  a  bad  end.     And  if  the  turkeys  had 
any  Sunday  school,  they  would  be  taught  this. 
The  New  England  boy  used  to  look  forward 
to  Thanksgiving  as  the  great  event  of  the  year. 
He  was  apt  to  get   stents  set  him,  —  so  much 
corn  to  husk,  for   instance,  before  that   day,  so 
that  he  could  have  an  extra  play-spell ;    and  in 
order  to  gain  a  day  or  two,  he  would  work  at 
his  task  with  the  rapidity  of  half  a  dozen  boys. 
He  had  the  day  after  Thanksgiving  always  as 
a   holiday,   and    this   was   the    day    he    counted 
on.      Thanksgiving    itself  was    rather   an    awful 
festival,  —  very   much    like    Sunday,    except    for 
the  enormous  dinner,  which   filled  his  imagina- 
tion for  months  before  as   completely  as  it  did 
his    stomach   for   that    day   and    a   week    after. 


82 


BEING  A   BOY. 


There  was  an  impression  in  the  house  that  that 
dinner    was    the 
most     important 
event    since    the 
landing  from  the 
Mayflower.     Heliogabalus,  who 
did    not    resemble    a    Pilgrim 
Father    at    all,    but    who    had 
prepared     for    himself    in    his 
day  some  very  sumptuous  ban- 
quets    in     Rome,    and    ate    a 
great  deal  of  the  best  he  could 
get  (and  liked  peacocks  stuffed 
with  asafcetida,  for  one  thing), 
never   had   any- 
thing like 


TWENTY-FOUR  KINDS  OF  PIE.  83 

a  Thanksgiving  dinner ;  for  do  you  suppose  that 
he,  or  Sardanapalus  either,  ever  had  twenty-four 
different  kinds  of  pie  at  one  dinner  ?  Therein 
many  a  New  England  boy  is  greater  than  the 
Roman  emperor  or  the  Assyrian  king,  and  these 
were  among  the  most  luxurious  eaters  of  their 
day  and  generation.  But  something  more  is  ne- 
cessary to  make  good  men  than  plenty  to  eat, 
as  Heliogabalus  no  doubt  found  when  his  head 
was  cut  off.  Cutting  off  the  head  was  a  mode 
the  people  had  of  expressing  disapproval  of 
their  conspicuous  men.  Nowadays  they  elect 
them  to  a  higher  office,  or  give  them  a  mission 
to  some  foreign  country,  if  they  do  not  do  well 
where  they  are. 

For  days  and  days  before  Thanksgiving  the 
boy  was  kept  at  work  evenings,  pounding  and 
paring  and  cutting  up  and  mixing  (not  being 
allowed  to  taste  much),  until  the  world  seemed 
to  him  to  be  made  of  fragrant  spices,  green 


84  BEING  A   BOY. 

fruit,  raisins,  and  pastry,  —  a  world  that  he  was 
only  yet  allowed  to  enjoy  through  his  nose. 
How  filled  the  house  was  with  the  most  deli- 
cious smells  !  The  mince-pies  that  were  made  ! 
If  John  had  been  shut  in  solid  walls  with  them 
piled  about  him,  he  could  n't  have  eaten  his 
way  out  in  four  weeks.  There  were  dainties 
enough  cooked  in  those  two  weeks  to  have 
made  the  entire  year  luscious  with  good  living, 
if  they  had  been  scattered  along  in  it.  But 
people  were  probably  all  the  better  for  scrimp- 
ing themselves  a  little  in  order  to  make  this  a 
great  feast.  And  it  was  not  by  any  means 
over  in  a  day.  There  were  weeks  deep  of 
chicken-pie  and  other  pastry.  The  cold  but- 
tery was  a  cave  of  Aladdin,  and  it  took  a  long 
time  to  excavate  all  its  riches. 

Thanksgiving  Day  itself  was  a  heavy  day, 
the  hilarity  of  it  being  so  subdued  by  going  to 
meeting,  and  the  universal  wearing  of  the  Sun- 


NO  HILARITY.  85 

day  clothes,  that  the  boy  could  n't  see  it.  But 
if  he  felt  little  exhilaration,  he  ate  a  great  deal. 
The  next  day  was  the  real  holiday.  Then  were 
the  merry-making  parties,  and  perhaps  the  skat- 
ings  and  sleighrides,  for  the  freezing  weather 
came  before  the  governor's  proclamation  in 
many  parts  of  New  England.  The  night  after 
Thanksgiving  occurred,  perhaps,  the  first  real 
party  that  the  boy  had  ever  attended,  with 
live  girls  in  it,  dressed  so  bewitchingly.  And 
there  he  heard  those  philandering  songs,  and 
played  those  sweet  games  of  forfeits,  which  put 
him  quite  beside  himself,  and  kept  him  awake 
that  night  till  the  rooster  crowed  at  the  end 
of  his  first  chicken-nap.  What  a  new  world 
did  that  party  open  to  him  !  I  think  it  likely 
that  he  saw  there,  and  probably  did  not  dare 
say  ten  words  to,  some  tall,  graceful  girl,  much 
older  than  himself,  who  seemed  to  him  like  a 
new  order  of  being.  He  could  see  her  face 


86 


BEING  A   BOY. 


just  as  plainly  in  the  darkness  of  his  chamber. 
He  wondered  if  she  noticed  how  awkward  he 
was,  and  how  short  his  trousers-legs  were. 
He  blushed  as 
he  thought  of 
his  rather  ill- 
fitting  shoes; 
and  determined, 
then  and  there, 
that  he  would  n't 


be  put  off  with  a 
ribbon  any  longer,  but  would  have  a  young 
man's  necktie.  It  was  somewhat  painful  think- 
ing the  party  over,  but  it  was  delicious  too. 


ALL  FOR  LOVE.  87 

He  did  not  think,  probably,  that  he  would  die 
for  that  tall,  handsome  girl  ;  he  did  not  put 
it  exactly  in  that  way.  But  he  rather  resolved 
to  live  for  her,  —  which  might  in  the  end 
amount  to  the  same  thing.  At  least,  he 
thought  that  nobody  would  live  to  speak  twice 
disrespectfully  of  her  in  his  presence. 


IX. 

THE   SEASON   OF   PUMPKIN-PIE. 

HAT  John    said 
was,     that      he 
did  n't      care 
much  for  pump- 
kin-pie ;    but   that   was 
after   he    had   eaten   a 
whole  one.     It  seemed 
to  him  then  that  mince 
would  be  better. 

The  feeling  of  a  boy 
towards  pumpkin  -  pie 
has  never  been  properly  considered.  There  is 
an  air  of  festivity  about  its  approach  in  the  fall. 
The  boy  is  willing  to  help  pare  and  cut  up  the 


THE  BOY  IN  THE  BUTTERY.  89 

pumpkin,  and  he  watches  with  the  greatest  inter- 
est the  stirring-up  process  and  the  pouring  into 
the  scalloped  crust.  When  the  sweet  savor  of 
the  baking  reaches  his  nostrils,  he  is  filled  with 
the  most  delightful  anticipations.  Why  should 
he  not  be  ?  He  knows  that  for  months  to  come 
the  buttery  will  contain  golden  treasures,  and 
that  it  will  require  only  a  slight  ingenuity  to  get 
at  them. 

The  fact  is,  that  the  boy  is  as  good  in  the 
buttery  as  in  any  part  of  farming.  His  elders 
say  that  the  boy  is  always  hungry  ;  but  that  is  a 
very  coarse  way  to  put  it.  He  has  only  recently 
come  into  a  world  that  is  full  of  good  things  to 
eat,  and  there  is  on  the  whole  a  very  short  time 
in  which  to  eat  them  ;  at  least  he  is  told,  among 
the  first  information  he  receives,  that  life  is 
short.  Life  being  brief,  and  pie  and  th'e  like 
fleeting,  he  very  soon  decides  upon  an  active 
campaign.  It  may  be  an  old  story  to  people  who 


90  BEING  A   BOY. 

have  been  eating  for  forty  or  fifty  years,  but  it  is 
different  with  a  beginner.  He  takes  the  thick 
and  thin  as  it  comes,  as  to  pie,  for  instance. 
Some  people  do  make  them  very  thin.  I  knew 
a  place  where  they  were  not  thicker  than  the  poor 
man's  plaster  ;  they  were  spread  so  thin  upon 
the  crust  that  they  were  better  fitted  to  draw  out 
hunger  than  to  satisfy  it.  They  used  to  be  made 
up  by  the  great  oven-full  and  kept  in  the  dry 
cellar,  where  they  hardened  and  dried  to  a 
toughness  you  would  hardly  believe.  This  was 
a  long  time  ago,  and  they  make  the  pumpkin-pie 
in  the  country  better  now,  or  the  race  of  boys 
would  have  been  so  discouraged  that  I  think 
they  would  have  stopped  coming  into  the  world. 
The  truth  is  that  boys  have  always  been  so 
plenty  that  they  are  not  half  appreciated.  We 
have  shown  that  a  farm  could  not  get  along  with- 
out them,  and  yet  their  rights  are  seldom  rec- 
ognized. One  of  the  most  amusing  things  is 


THE  BOY'S  CALVES.  91 

their  effort  to  acquire  personal  property.  The 
boy  has  the  care  of  the  calves ;  they  always  need 
feeding  or  shutting  up  or  letting  out  ;  when  the 
boy  wants  to  play  there  are  those  calves  to  be 
looked  after,  —  until  he  gets  to  hate  the  name  of 
calf.  But  in  consideration  of  his  faithfulness, 
two  of  them  are  given  to  him.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  they  are  his,  he  has  the  entire  charge 
of  them.  When  they  get  to  be  steers,  he  spends 
all  his  holidays  in  breaking  them  in  to  a  yoke. 
He  gets  them  so  broken  in  that  they  will  run 
like  a  pair  of  deer  all  over  the  farm,  turning  the 
yoke,  and  kicking  their  heels,  while  he  follows  in 
full  chase,  shouting  the  ox  language  till  he  is  red 
in  the  face.  When  the  steers  grow  up  to  be 
cattle,  a  drover  one  day  comes  along  and  takes 
them  away,  and  the  boy  is  told  that  he  can  have 
another  pair  of  calves  ;  and  so,  with  undimin- 
ished  faith  he  goes  back  and  begins  over  again 
to  make  his  fortune.  He  owns  lambs  and  young 


92  BEING  A   BOY. 

colts  in  the  same  way  and  makes  just  as  much 
out  of  them. 

There  are  ways  in  which  the  farmer-boy  can 
earn  money,  as  by  gathering  the  early  chestnuts 
and  taking  them  to  the  Corner  store,  or  by 
finding  turkeys'  eggs  and  selling  them  to  his 
mother;  and  another  way  is  to  go  without  but- 
ter at  the  table  —  but  the  money  thus  made  is 
for  the  heathen.  John  read  in  Dr.  Livingstone 
that  some  of  the  tribes  in  Central  Africa  (which 
is  represented  by  a  blank  spot  in  the  atlas),  use 
the  butter  to  grease  their  hair,  putting  on  pounds 
of  it  at  a  time  ;  and  he  said  he  had  rather  eat  his 
butter  than  have  it  put  to  that  use,  especially  as 
it  melted  away  so  fast  in  that  hot  climate. 

Of  course  it  was  explained  to  John  that  the 
missionaries  do  not  actually  carry  butter  to 
Africa,  and  that  they  must  usually  go  without 
it  themselves  there,  it  being  almost  impossible 
to  make  it  good  from  the  milk  in  the  cocoanuts. 


MISSIONARY  EFFORTS.  93 

And  it  was  further  explained  to  him  that  even 
if  the  heathen  never  received  his  butter  or  the 
money  for  it,  it  was  an  excellent  thing  for  a  boy 
to  cultivate  the  habit  of  self-denial  and  of  benev- 
olence, and  if  the  heathen  never  heard  of  him, 
he  would  be  blessed  for  his  generosity.  This 
was  all  true. 

But  John  said  that  he  was  tired  of  supporting 
the  heathen  out  of  his  butter,  and  he  wished  the 
rest  of  the  family  would  also  stop  eating  butter 
and  save  the  money  for  missions  ;  and  he  wanted 
to  know  where  the  other  members  of  the  family 
got  their  money  to  send  to  the  heathen  ;  and  his 
mother  said  that  he  was  about  half  right,  and 
that  self-denial  was  just  as  good  for  grown  peo- 
ple as  it  was  for  little  boys  and  girls. 

The  boy  is  not  always  slow  to  take  what  he 
considers  his  rights.  Speaking  of  those  thin 
pumpkin-pies  kept  in  the  cellar  cupboard.  I 
used  to  know  a  boy,  who  afterwards  grew  to  be 


94 


BEING  A   BOY. 


a  selectman,  and  brushed  his  hair  straight  up 
like  General  Jackson,  and  went  to  the  legislature, 
where  he  always  voted  against  every  measure 
that  was  proposed,  in  the  most  honest  manner, 
and  got  the  reputation  of  being  the  "  watch-dog 
of  the  treasury."  Rats  in  the  cellar  were  noth- 
ing to  be  compared  to  this  boy  for  destructive- 
ness  in  pies.  He  used  to  go  down  whenever 
he  could  make  an  excuse,  to  get  apples  for  the 
family,  or  draw  a  mug  of  cider  for  his  dear  old 
grandfather  (who  was  a 
famous  story-teller  about 
the  Revolutionary  War, 
and  would  no  doubt  have 
been  wounded  in  battle  if 
he  had  not  been  as  pru- 
dent as  he  was  patriotic), 
and  come  up  stairs  with  a 
tallow  candle  in  one  hand 
and  the  apples  or  cider  in  the  other,  looking  as 


CONCEDED  PIE.  95 

innocent  and  as  unconscious  as  if  he  had  never 
done  anything  in  his  life  except  deny  himself 
butter  for  the  sake  of  the  heathen.  And  yet 
this  boy  would  have  buttoned  under  his  jacket 
an  entire  round  pumpkin-pie.  And  the  pie  was 
so  well  made  and  so  dry  that  it  was  not  injured 
in  the  least,  and  it  never  hurt  the  boy's  clothes 
a  bit  more  than  if  it  had  been  inside  of  him 
instead  of  outside  ;  and  this  boy  would  retire 
to  a  secluded  place  and  eat  it  with  another  boy, 
being  never  suspected  because  he  was  not  in 
the  cellar  long  enough  to  eat  a  pie,  and  he  never 
appeared  to  have  one  about  him.  But  he  did 
something  worse  than  this.  When  his  mother 
saw  that  pie  after  pie  departed,  she  told  the 
family  that  she  suspected  the  hired  man  ;  and  the 
boy  never  said  a  word,  which  was  the  meanest 
kind  of  lying.  That  hired  man  was  probably 
regarded  with  suspicion  by  the  family  to  the 
end  of  his  days,  and  if  he  had  been  accused  of 
robbing,  they  would  have  believed  him  guilty. 


96  BEING  A   BOY. 

I  should  n't  wonder  if  that  selectman  occasion- 
ally has  remorse  now  about  that  pie  ;  dreams, 
perhaps,  that  it  is  buttoned  up  under  his  jacket 
and  sticking  to  him  like  a  breastplate  ;  that  it 
lies  upon  his  stomach  like  a  round  and  red-hot 
nightmare,  eating  into  his  vitals.  Perhaps  not. 
It  is  difficult  to  say  exactly  what  was  the  sin  of 
stealing  that  kind  of  pie,  especially  if  the  one 
who  stole  it  ate  it.  It  could  have  been  used 
for  the  game  of  pitching  quoits,  and  a  pair  of 
them  would  have  made  very  fair  wheels  for  the 
dog-cart.  And  yet  it  is  probably  as  wrong  to 
steal  a  thin  pie  as  a  thick  one  ;  and  it  made  no 
difference  because  it  was  easy  to  steal  this  sort. 
Easy  stealing  is  no  better  than  easy  lying,  where 
detection  of  the  lie  is  difficult.  The  boy  who 
steals  his  mother's  pies  has  no  right  to  be  sur- 
prised when  some  other  boy  steals  his  water- 
melons. Stealing  is  like  charity  in  one  respect, 
—  it  is  apt  to  begin  at  home. 


X. 


FIRST  EXPERIENCE  OF  THE  WORLD. 

F  I  were  forced 
to   be  a  boy, 
and  a  boy  in 
the    country, 
—  the  best 
kind    of    boy 
to  be   in  the 
summer,  — 
I  would   be 
about       ten 
years  of  age. 
As   soon  as 
I   got   any 
older,    I    would    quit    it.     The    trouble   with    a 


98  BEING  A  BOY. 

boy  is  that  just  as  he  begins  to  enjoy  himself 
he  is  too  old,  and  has  to  be  set  to  doing  some- 
thing else.  If  a  country  boy  were  wise  he 
would  stay  at  just  that  age  when  he  could 
enjoy  himself  most,  and  have  the  least  expected 
of  him  in  the  way  of  work. 

Of  course  the  perfectly  good  boy  will  always 
prefer  to  work  and  to  do  "  chores  "  for  his  father 
and  errands  for  his  mother  and  sisters,  rather 
than  enjoy  himself  in  his  own  way.  I  never 
saw  but  one  such  boy.  He  lived  in  the  town 
of  Goshen,  —  not  the  place  where  the  butter  is 
made,  but  a  much  better  Goshen  than  that. 
And  I  never  saw  him,  but  I  heard  of  him  ;  and 
being  about  the  same  age,  as  I  supposed,  I  was 
taken  once  from  Zoah,  where  I  lived,  to  Goshen 
to  see  him.  But  he  was  dead.  He  had  been 
dead  almost  a  year,  so  that  it  was  impossible  to 
see  him.  He  died  of  the  most  singular  disease : 
it  was  from  not  eating  green  apples  in  the  season 


THE   GOOD  BOY.  99 

of  them.  This  boy,  whose  name  was  Solomon, 
before  he  died,  would  rather  split  up  kindling- 
wood  for  his  mother  than  go  a-fishing,  —  the 
consequence  was  that  he  was  kept  at  splitting 
kindling-wood  and  such  work  most  of  the  time, 
and  grew  a  better  and  more  useful  boy  day  by 
day.  Solomon  would  not  disobey  his  parents 
and  eat  green  apples,  —  not  even  when  they 
were  ripe  enough  to  knock  off  with  a  stick, — 
but  he  had  such  a  longing  for  them,  that  he 
pined,  and  passed  away.  If  he  had  eaten  the 
green  apples  he  would  have  died  of  them,  prob- 
ably ;  so  that  his  example  is  a  difficult  one  to 
follow.  In  fact,  a  boy  is  a  hard  subject  to  get  a 
moral  from.  All  his  little  playmates  who  ate 
green  apples  came  to  Solomon's  funeral,  and 
were  very  sorry  for  what  they  had  done. 

John  was  a  very  different  boy  from  Solomon, 
not  half  so  good,  nor  half  so  dead.  He  was  a 
farmer's  boy,  as  Solomon  was,  but  he  did  not 


IOO  BEING  A   BOY. 

take  so  much  interest  in  the  farm.  If  John 
could  have  had  his  way  he  would  have  dis- 
covered a  cave  full  of  diamonds,  and  lots  of 
nail-kegs  full  of  gold-pieces  and  Spanish  dollars, 
with  a  pretty  little  girl  living  in  the  cave,  and 
two  beautifully  caparisoned  horses,  upon  which, 
taking  the  jewels  and  money,  they  would  have 
ridden  off  together,  he  did  not  know  where. 
John  had  got  thus  far  in  his  studies,  which  were 
apparently  arithmetic  and  geography,  but  were 
in  reality  the  Arabian  Nights,  and  other 
books  of  high  and  mighty  adventure.  He  was 
a  simple  country  boy,  and  did  not  know  much 
about  the  world  as  it  is,  but  he  had  one  of  his 
own  imagination,  in  which  he  lived  a  good  deal. 
I  dare  say  he  found  out  soon  enough  what  the 
world  is,  and  he  had  a  lesson  or  two  when  he 
was  quite  young,  in  two  incidents,  which  I  may 
as  well  relate. 

If  you  had  seen  John  at  this  time  you  might 


A  NEAT  HAT. 


IOI 


have  thought  he  was   only  a   shabbily  dressed 
country  lad,  and  you  never  would  have  guessed 

what  beautiful 
thoughts  he 
sometimes  had 
-1  as  he  went  stub- 
bing his  toes 
along  the  dusty 
road,  nor  what 
a  chivalrous  lit- 
tle fellow  he  was. 
You  would  have 
seen  a  short  boy, 
barefooted,  with 
trousers  at  once 
too  big  and  too 
short,  held  up  perhaps  by  one  suspender  only, 
a  checked  cotton  shirt,  and  a  hat  of  braided 
palmleaf,  frayed  at  the  edges  and  bulged  up  in 
the  crown.  It  is  impossible  to  keep  a  hat  neat 


IO2  BEING  A   BOY. 

if  you  use  it  to  catch  bumble-bees  and  whisk 
'em  ;  to  bail  the  water  from  a  leaky  boat ;  to 
catch  minnows  in  ;  to  put  over  honey-bees'  nests, 
and  to  transport  pebbles,  strawberries,  and  hens' 
eggs.  John  usually  carried  a  sling  in  his  hand, 
or  a  bow,  or  a  limber  stick,  sharp  at  one  end, 
from  which  he  could  sling  apples  a  great  dis- 
tance. If  he  walked  in  the  road,  he  walked  in 
the  middle  of  it,  shuffling  up  the  dust  ;  or  if  he 
went  elsewhere,  he  was  likely  to  be  running 
on  the  top  of  the  fence  or  the  stone-wall,  and 
chasing  chipmunks. 

John  knew  the  best  place  to  dig  sweet-flag  in 
all  the  farm  ;  it  was  in  a  meadow  by  the  river, 
where  the  bobolinks  sang  so  gayly.  He  never 
liked  to  hear  the  bobolink  sing,  however,  for  he 
said  it  always  reminded  him  of  the  whetting  of 
a  scythe,  and  that  reminded  him  of  spreading 
hay ;  and  if  there  was  anything  he  hated  it  was 
spreading  hay  after  the  mowers.  "  I  guess  you 


A   BEAUTIFUL   LADY.  103 

would  n't  like  it  yourself,"  said  John,  "  with  the 
stubbs  getting  into  your  feet,  and  the  hot  sun, 
and  the  men  getting  ahead  of  you,  all  you  could 
do." 

Towards  evening,  once,  John  was  coming 
along  the  road  home  with  some  stalks  of  the 
sweet-flag  in  his  hand  ;  there  is  a  succulent  pith 
in  the  end  of  the  stalk  which  is  very  good  to  eat, 
tender,  and  not  so  strong  as  the  root ;  and  John 
liked  to  pull  it,  and  carry  home  what  he  did  not 
eat  on  the  way.  As  he  was  walking  along  he 
met  a  carriage,  which  stopped  opposite  to  him  ; 
he  also  stopped  and  bowed,  as  country  boys  used 
to  bow  in  John's  day.  A  lady  leaned  from  the 
carriage,  and  said, — 

"  What  have  you  got,  little  boy  ? " 
She  seemed  to  be  the  most  beautiful  woman 
John  had  ever  seen  ;  with  light  hair,  dark,  ten- 
der  eyes,  and   the  sweetest   smile.     There  was 
that  in  her  gracious  mien  and  in  her  dress  which 


IO4  BEING  A  BOY. 

reminded  John  of  the  beautiful  castle  ladies,  with 
whom  he  was  well  acquainted  in  books.  He 
felt  that  he  knew  her  at  once,  and  he  also 
seemed  to  be  a  sort  of  young  prince  himself. 
I  fancy  he  did  n't  look  much  like  one.  But  of 
his  own  appearance  he  thought  not  at  all,  as  he 
replied  to  the  lady's  question,  without  the  least 
embarrassment,  — 

"  It 's  sweet-flag  stalk  ;  would  you  like  some  ?  " 

"  Indeed,  I  should  like  to  taste  it,"  said  the 
lady,  with  a  most  winning  smile.  "  I  used  to 
be  very  fond  of  it  when  I  was  a  little  girl." 

John  was  delighted  that  the  lady  should  like 
sweet-flag,  and  that  she  was  pleased  to  accept 
it  from  him.  He  thought  himself  that  it  was 
about  the  best  thing  to  eat  he  knew.  He 
handed  up  a  large  bunch  of  it.  The  lady  took 
two  or  three  stalks,  and  was  about  to  return 
the  rest,  when  John  said, — 

"  Please  keep  it  all,  ma'am.  I  can  get  lots 
more.  I  know  where  it 's  ever  so  thick." 


JOHN  HUMILIATED.  105 

"  Thank  you,  thank  you,"  said  the  lady  ;  and 
as  the  carriage  started  she  reached  out  her  hand 
to  John.  He  did  not  understand  the  motion, 
until  he  saw  a  cent  drop  in  the  road  at  his  feet. 
Instantly  all  his  illusion  and  his  pleasure  van- 
ished. Something  like  tears  were  in  his  eyes  as 
he  shouted,  — 

"  I  don't  want  your  cent.     I  don't  sell  flag  !  " 

John  was  intensely  mortified.  "  I  suppose," 
he  said,  "  she  thought  I  was  a  sort  of  beggar- 
boy.  To  think  of  selling  flag  !  " 

At  any  rate,  he  walked  away  and  left  the  cent 
in  the  road,  a  humiliated  boy.  The  next  day  he 
told  Jim  Gates  about  it.  Jim  said  he  was  green 
not  to  take  the  money  ;  he  'd  go  and  look  for  it 
now,  if  he  would  tell  him  about  where  it  dropped. 
And  Jim  did  spend  an  hour  poking  about  in  the 
dirt,  but  he  did  not  find  the  cent.  Jim,  however, 
had  an  idea  ;  he  said  he  was  going  to  dig  sweet- 
flag,  and  see  if  another  carriage  would  n't  come 
along. 


io6 


BEING  A   BOY. 


John's  next  rebuff  and  knowledge  of  the  world 
was  of  another  sort.     He  was  again  walking  the 


road  at  twilight,  when   he  was  overtaken   by  a 


A    CRUEL    THING.  107 

wagon  with  one  seat,  upon  which  were  two 
pretty  girls,  and  a  young  gentleman  sat  between 
them,  driving.  It  was  a  merry  party,  and  John 
could  hear  them  laughing  and  singing  as  they 
approached  him.  The  wagon  stopped  when  it 
overtook  him,  and  one  of  the  sweet-faced  girls 
leaned  from  the  seat  and  said,  quite  seriously 
and  pleasantly, — 

"  Little  boy,  how  's  your  mar  ?  " 

John  was  surprised  and  puzzled  for  a  moment. 
He  had  never  seen  the  young  lady,  but  he 
thought  that  she  perhaps  knew  his  mother;  at 
any  rate  his  instinct  of  politeness  made  him 
say,— 

"  She  's  pretty  well,  I  thank  you." 

"  Does  she  know  you  are  out  ? " 

And  thereupon  all  three  in  the  wagon  burst 
into  a  roar  of  laughter,  and  dashed  on. 

It  flashed  upon  John  in  a  moment  that  he  had 
been  imposed  on,  and  it  hurt  him  dreadfully. 


IO8  BEING  A   BOY. 

His  self-respect  was  injured  somehow,  and  he 
felt  as  if  his  lovely,  gentle  mother  had  been 
insulted.  He  would  like  to  have  thrown  a  stone 
at  the  wagon,  and  in  a  rage  he  cried,  — 

"  You  're  a  nice  —  "  but  he  could  n't  think 
of  any  hard,  bitter  words  quick  enough. 

Probably  the  young  lady,  who  might  have 
been  almost  any  young  lady,  never  knew  what 
a  cruel  thing  she  had  done. 


XI. 

HOME   INVENTIONS. 


HE  winter 
season  is  not 
all  sliding 
down  hill  for 

the     farmer -boy,    by    any 
means  ;  yet  he  contrives  to 
get  as  much  fun  out  of  it 
as   from    any   part   of   the 
year.     There  is  a  dif- 
ference in  boys,  some 
:gi^    ^  are   always  jolly 
and    some   go 
scowling    always 


110  BEING  A   BOY. 

through   life   as   if  they  had  a  stone-bruise   on 
each  heel.     I  like  a  jolly  boy. 

I  used  to  know  one  who  came  round  every 
morning  to  sell  molasses  candy,  offering  two 
sticks  for  a  cent  apiece  ;  it  was  worth  fifty  cents 
a  day  to  see  his  cheery  face.  That  boy  rose  in 
the  world.  He  is  now  the  owner  of  a  large 
town  at  the  West.  To  be  sure,  there  are  no 
houses  in  it  except  his  own  ;  but  there  is  a  map 
of  it  and  roads  and  streets  are  laid  out  on  it,  with 
dwellings  and  churches  and  academies  and  a 
college  and  an  opera-house,  and  you  could 
scarcely  tell  it  from  Springfield  or  Hartford,  on 
paper.  He  and  all  his  family  have  the  fever 
and  ague,  and  shake  worse  than  the  people  at 
Lebanon ;  but  they  do  not  mind  it,  it  makes 
them  lively,  in  fact.  Ed  May  is  just  as  jolly  as 
he  used  to  be.  He  calls  his  town  Mayopolis, 
and  expects  to  be  mayor  of  it ;  his  wife,  how- 
ever, calls  the  town  Maybe. 


THE   COLD  BARN.  Ill 

The  farmer-boy  likes  to  have  winter  come  for 
one  thing,  because  it  freezes  up  the  ground  so 
that  he  can't  dig  in  it ;  and  it  is  covered  with 
snow  so  that  there  is  no  picking  up  stones,  nor 
driving  the  cows  to  pasture.  He  would  have  a 
very  easy  time  if  it  were  not  for  the  getting  up 
before  daylight  to  build  the  fires  and  do  the 
"  chores."  Nature  intended  the  long  winter 
nights  for  the  farmer-boy  to  sleep ;  but  in  my 
day  he  was  expected  to  open  his  sleepy  eyes 
when  the  cock  crew,  get  out  of  the  warm  bed 
and  light  a  candle,  struggle  into  his  cold  pan- 
taloons, and  pull  on  boots  in  which  the  ther- 
mometer would  have  gone  down  to  zero,  rake 
open  the  coals  on  the  hearth  and  start  the 
morning  fire,  and  then  go  to  the  barn  to  "  fod- 
der." The  frost  was  thick  on  the  kitchen  win- 
dows, the  snow  was  drifted  against  the  door, 
and  the  journey  to  the  barn,  in  the  pale  light 
of  dawn,  over  the  creaking  snow,  was  like  an 


112  BEING  A   BOY. 

exile's  trip  to  Siberia.  The  boy  was  not  half 
awake  when  he  stumbled  into  the  cold  barn, 
and  was  greeted  by  the  lowing  and  bleating  and 
neighing  of  cattle  waiting  for  their  breakfast. 
How  their  breath  steamed  up  from  the  mangers, 
and  hung  in  frosty  spears  from  their  noses. 
Through  the  great  lofts  above  the  hay,  where 
the  swallows  nested,  the  winter  wind  whistled, 
and  the  snow  sifted.  Those  old  barns  were  well 
ventilated. 

I  used  to  spend  much  valuable  time  in  plan- 
ning a  barn  that  should  be  tight  and  warm, 
with  a  fire  in  it  if  necessary  in  order  to  keep 
the  temperature  somewhere  near  the  freezing- 
point.  I  could  n't  see  how  the  cattle  could  live 
in  a  place  where  a  lively  boy,  full  of  young 
blood,  would  freeze  to  death  in  a  short  time  if 
he  did  not  swing  his  arms  and  slap  his  hands, 
and  jump  about  like  a  goat.  I  thought  I  would 
have  a  sort  of  perpetual  manger  that  should 


FIRE-BUILDING  MACHINE.  113 

shake  down  the  hay  when  it  was  wanted,  and 
a  self-acting  machine  that  should  cut  up  the 
turnips  and  pass  them  into  the  mangers,  and 
water  always  flowing  for  the  cattle  and  horses 
to  drink.  With  these  simple  arrangements  I 
could  lie  in  bed,  and  know  that  the  "chores" 
were  doing  themselves.  It  would  also  be  neces- 
sary, in  order  that  I  should  not  be  disturbed, 
that  the  crow  should  be  taken  out  of  the 
roosters,  but  I  could  think  of  no  process  to  do 
it.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  hen-breeders,  if 
they  know  as  much  as  they  say  they  do,  might 
raise  a  breed  of  crowless  roosters,  for  the  ben- 
efit of  boys,  quiet  neighborhoods,  and  sleepy 
families. 

There  was  another  notion  that  I  had  about 
kindling  the  kitchen  fire,  that  I  never  carried 
out.  It  was  to  have  a  spring  at  the  head  of 
my  bed,  connecting  with  a  wire,  which  should 
run  to  a  torpedo  which  I  would  plant  over  night 


BEING  A  BOY. 


in  the  ashes  of  the  fire- 
place. By  touching  the 
spring  I  could  explode  the 
torpedo,  which  would  scat- 
ter the  ashes  and  cover 
the  live  coals,  and  at  the 
same  time  shake  down  the  sticks  of  wood 
which  were  standing  by  the  side  of  the  ashes 
in  the  chimney,  and  the  fire  would  kindle  itself. 

This  ingenious  plan 
was  frowned  on  by 
the  whole  family, 
who  said  they  did 
not  want  to  be 
waked  up  every 
morning  by  an  ex- 
plosion. And  yet 
they  expected  me 
to  wake  up  without 
an  explosion.  A 


SLIDING  DO  WN  HILL.  115 

boy's  plans  for  making  life  agreeable  are  hardly 
ever  heeded. 

I  never  knew  a  boy  farmer  who  was  not 
eager  to  go  to  the  district  school  in  the  winter. 
There  is  such  a  chance  for  learning,  that  he 
must  be  a  dull  boy  who  does  not  come  out  in 
the  spring  a  fair  skater,  an  accurate  snowballer, 
and  an  accomplished  slider-down-hill,  with  or 
without  a  board,  on  his  seat,  on  his  stomach, 
or  on  his  feet.  Take  a  moderate  hill,  with  a 
foot-slide  down  it  worn  to  icy  smoothness,  and 
a  "  go-round  "  of  boys  on  it,  and  there  is  noth- 
ing like  it  for  whittling  away  boot-leather.  The 
boy  is  the  shoemaker's  friend.  An  active  lad 
can  wear  down  a  pair  of  cowhide  soles  in  a 
week  so  that  the  ice  will  scrape  his  toes.  Sled- 
ding or  coasting  is  also  slow  fun  compared  to 
the  "  bareback  "  sliding  down  a  steep  hill  over  a 
hard,  glistening  crust.  It  is  not  only  danger- 
ous, but  it  is  destructive  to  jacket  and  panta- 


Il6  BEING  A   BOY. 

loons  to  a  degree  to  make  a  tailor  laugh.  If 
any  other  animal  wore  out  his  skin  as  fast  as 
a  school-boy  wears  out  his  clothes  in  winter,  it 
would  need  a  new  one  once  a  month.  In  a 
country  district-school  patches  were  not  by  any 
means  a  sign  of  poverty,  but  of  the  boy's  courage 
and  adventurous  disposition.  Our  elders  used  to 
threaten  to  dress  us  in  leather  and  put  sheet- 
iron  seats  in  our  trousers.  The  boy  said  that 
he  wore  out  his  trousers  on  the  hard  seats  in 
the  school-house  ciphering  hard  sums.  For  that 
extraordinary  statement  he  received  two  cas- 
tigations,  one  at  home,  that  was  mild,  and  one 
from  the  schoolmaster,  who  was  careful  to  lay 
the  rod  upon  the  boy's  sliding-place,  punish- 
ing him  as  he  jocosely  called  it  on  a  sliding 
scale,  according  to  the  thinness  of  his  panta- 
loons. 

What  I  liked   best   at   school,   however,  was 
the  study  of  history,  early  history,  the  Indian 


OBJECT-LESSONS. 

wars.  We  studied  it  mostly  at  noontime,  and 
we  had  it  illustrated  as  the  children  nowadays 
have  "  object-lessons,"  —  though  our  object  was 
not  so  much  to  have  lessons  as  it  was  to  revive 
real  history. 

Back  of  the  school-house  rose  a  round  hill, 
upon  which  tradition  said  had  stood  in  colonial 
times  a  block-house,  built  by  the  settlers  for 
defence  against  the  Indians.  For  the  Indians 
had  the  idea  that  the  whites  were  not  settled 
enough,  and  used  to  come  nights  to  settle  them 
with  a  tomahawk.  It  was  called  Fort  Hill.  It 
was  very  steep  on  each  side,  and  the  river  ran 
close  by.  It  was  a  charming  place  in  summer, 
where  one  could  find  laurel,  and  checkerber- 
ries,  and  sassafras  roots,  and  sit  in  the  cool 
breeze,  looking  at  the  mountains  across  the 
river,  and  listening  to  the  murmur  of  the  Deer- 
field.  The  Methodists  built  a  meeting-house 
there  afterwards,  but  the  hill  was  so  slippery  in 


n8 


BEING  A  BOY. 


winter  that  the  aged  could  not  climb  it,  and 
the  wind  raged  so  fiercely  that  it  blew  nearly 
all  the  young  Methodists  away  (many  of  whom 
were  alterwards  heard  of  in  the  West),  and 


finally  the  meeting-house  itself  came  down  into 
the  valley,  and  grew  a  steeple,  and  enjoyed 
itself  ever  afterwards.  It  used  to  be  a  notion 


PEQUOl'S  AND  EARL  Y  SE TTL ERS.         I  1 9 

in  New  England  that  a  meeting-house  ought  to 
stand  as  near  heaven  as  possible. 

The  boys  at  our  school  divided  themselves 
into  two  parties ;  one  was  the  Early  Settlers 
and  the  other  the  Pequots,  the  latter  the  most 
numerous.  The  Early  Settlers  built  a  snow  fort 
on  the  hill,  and  a  strong  fortress  it  was,  con- 
structed of  snowballs,  rolled  up  to  a  vast  size 
(larger  than  the  Cyclopian  blocks  of  stone  which 
form  the  ancient  Etruscan  walls  in  Italy),  piled 
one  upon  another,  and  the  whole  cemented  by 
pouring  on  water  which  froze  and  made  the 
walls  solid.  The  Pequots  helped  the  whites 
build  it.  It  had  a  covered  way  under  the  snow, 
through  which  only  could  it  be  entered,  and  it 
had  bastions  and  towers  and  openings  to  fire 
from,  and  a  great  many  other  things  for  which 
there  are  no  names  in  military  books.  And  it 
had  a  glacis  and  a  ditch  outside. 

When  it  was  completed,  the   Early  Settlers, 


I2O  BEING  A   BOY. 

leaving  the  women  in  the  school-house,  a  prey 
to  the  Indians,  used  to  retire  into  it,  and  await 
the  attack  of  the  Pequots.  There  was  only  a 
handful  of  the  garrison,  while  the  Indians  were 
many,  and  also  barbarous.  It  was  agreed  that 
they  should  be  barbarous.  And  it  was  in  this 
light  that  the  great  question  was  settled  whether 
a  boy  might  snowball  with  balls  that  he  had 
soaked  over  night  in  water  and  let  freeze. 
They  were  as  hard  as  cobble-stones,  and  if  a 
boy  should  be  hit  in  the  head  by  one  of  them 
he  could  not  tell  whether  he  was  a  Pequot  or 
an  Early  Settler.  It  was  considered  as  unfair 
to  use  these  ice-balls  in  an  open  fight,  as  it  is 
to  use  poisoned  ammunition  in  real  war.  But 
as  the  whites  were  protected  by  the  fort,  and 
the  Indians  were  treacherous  by  nature,  it  was 
decided  that  the  latter  might  use  the  hard 
missiles. 

The  Pequots  used  to  come  swarming  up  the 


THE  FIGHT.  121 

hill,  with  hideous  war-whoops,  attacking  the  fort 
on  all  sides  with  great  noise  and  a  shower  of 
balls.  The  garrison  replied  with  yells  of  de- 
fiance and  well-directed  shots,  hurling  back  the 
invaders  when  they  attempted  to  scale  the  walls. 
The  Settlers  had  the  advantage  of  position,  but 
they  were  sometimes  overpowered  by  numbers, 
and  would  often  have  had  to  surrender  but  for 
the  ringing  of  the  school-bell.  The  Pequots 
were  in  great  fear  of  the  school-bell. 

I  do  not  remember  that  the  whites  ever 
hauled  down  their  flag  and  surrendered  volun- 
tarily ;  but  once  or  twice  the  fort  was  carried 
by  storm  and  the  garrison  were  massacred  to  a 
boy,  and  thrown  out  of  the  fortress,  having  been 
first  scalped.  To  take  a  boy's  cap  was  to  scalp 
him,  and  after  that  he  was  dead,  if  he  played 
fair.  There  were  a  great  many  hard  hits  given 
and  taken,  but  always  cheerfully,  for  it  was  in 
the  cause  of  our  early  history.  The  history  of 


122  BEING  A   BOY. 

Greece  and  Rome  was  stuff  compared  to  this. 
And  we  had  many  boys  in  our  school  who 
could  imitate  the  Indian  war-whoop  enough 
better  than  they  could  scan  armay  vintmque 
cano. 


XII. 

THE   LONELY   FARM-HOUSE. 

HE  winter 
evenings  of 
the  farmer- 
boy  in  New 
England  used 
to  be  so  gay  as 
to  tire  him  of  the  pleas- 
ures of  life  before  he  be- 
came of  age.  A  remote 
farm-house,  standing  a  little  off  the  road,  banked 
up  with  sawdust  and  earth  to  keep  the  frost 
out  of  the  cellar,  blockaded  with  snow,  and 
flying  a  blue  flag  of  smoke  from  its  chimney, 
looks  like  a  besieged  fort.  On  cold  and  stormy 


124  BEING  A   BOY. 

winter  nights,  to  the  traveller  wearily  dragging 
along  in  his  creaking  sleigh,  the  light  from  its 
windows  suggests  a  house  of  refuge  and  the 
cheer  of  a  blazing  fire.  But  it  is  no  less  a  fort, 
into  which  the  family  retire  when  the  New  Eng- 
land winter  on  the  hills  really  sets  in. 

The  boy  is  an  important  part  of  the  garri- 
son. He  is  not  only  one  of  the  best  means  of 
communicating  with  the  outer  world,  but  he 
furnishes  half  the  entertainment  and  takes  two 
thirds  of  the  scolding  of  the  family  circle.  A 
farm  would  come  to  grief  without  a  boy  on  it, 
but  it  is  impossible  to  think  of  a  farm-house 
without  a  boy  in  it. 

"That  boy"  brings  life  into  the  house;  his 
tracks  are  to  be  seen  everywhere,  he  leaves  all 
the  doors  open,  he  has  n't  half  filled  the  wood- 
box,  he  makes  noise  enough  to  wake  the  dead ; 
or  he  is  in  a  brown-study  by  the  fire  and  can- 
not be  stirred,  or  he  has  fastened  a  grip  into 


"THAT  BOY."  125 

some  Crusoe  book  which  cannot  easily  be  sha- 
ken off.  I  suppose  that  the  farmer-boy's  even- 
ings are  not  now  what  they  used  to  be ;  that 
he  has  more  books,  and  less  to  do,  and  is  not 
half  so  good  a  boy  as  formerly,  when  he  used 
to  think  the  almanac  was  pretty  lively  reading, 
and  the  comic  almanac,  if  he  could  get  hold  of 
that,  was  a  supreme  delight. 

Of  course  he  had  the  evenings  to  himself, 
after  he  had  done  the  "  chores "  at  the  barn, 
brought  in  the  wood  and  piled  it  high  in  the 
box,  ready  to  be  heaped  upon  the  great  open 
fire.  It  was  nearly  dark  when  he  came  from 
school  (with  its  continuation  of  snowballing 
and  sliding),  and  he  always  had  an  agreeable 
time  stumbling  and  fumbling  around  in  barn 
and  wood-house,  in  the  waning  light. 

John  used  to  say  that  he  supposed  nobody 
would  do  his  "  chores  "  if  he  did  not  get  home 
till  midnight ;  and  he  was  never  contradicted. 


126  BEING  A  BOY. 

Whatever  happened  to  him,  and  whatever  length 
of  days  or  sort  of  weather  was  produced  by  the 
almanac,  the  cardinal  rule  was  that  he  should 
be  at  home  before  dark. 

John  used  to  imagine  what  people  did  in 
the  dark  ages,  and  wonder  sometimes  whether 
he  was  n't  still  in  them. 

Of  course,  John  had  nothing  to  do  all  the 
evening,  after  his  "chores,"  —  except  little  things. 
While  he  drew  his  chair  up  to  the  table  in 
order  to  get  the  full  radiance  of  the  tallow 
candle  on  his  slate  or  his  book,  the  women  of 
the  house  also  sat  by  the  table  knitting  and 
sewing.  The  head  of  the  house  sat  in  his 
chair,  tipped  back  against  the  chimney ;  the 
hired  man  was  in  danger  of  burning  his  boots 
in  the  fire.  John  might  be  deep  in  the  excite- 
ment of  a  bear  story,  or  be  hard  at  writing  a 
"  composition "  on  his  greasy  slate ;  but  what- 
ever he  was  doing,  he  was  the  only  one  who 


AN  IDLE  EVENING.  I2/ 

could  always  be  interrupted.  It  was  he  who 
must  snuff  the  candles,  and  put  on  a  stick  of 
wood,  and  toast  the  cheese,  and  turn  the  ap- 
ples, and  crack  the  nuts.  He  knew  where 
the  fox-and-geese  board  was,  and  he  could  find 
the  twelve-m en-Morris.  Considering  that  he 
was  expected  to  go  to  bed  at  eight  o'clock,  one 
would  say  that  the  opportunity  for  study  was 
not  great,  and  that  his  reading  was  rather  in- 
terrupted. There  seemed  to  be  always  some- 
thing for  him  to  do,  even  when  all  the  rest  of 
the  family  came  as  near  being  idle  as  is  ever 
possible  in  a  New  England  household. 

No  wonder  that  John  was  not  sleepy  at  eight 
o'clock ;  he  had  been  flying  about  while  the 
others  had  been  yawning  before  the  fire.  He 
would  like  to  sit  up  just  to  see  how  much  more 
solemn  and  stupid  it  would  become  as  the  night 
went  on  ;  he  wanted  to  tinker  his  skates,  to 
mend  his  sled,  to  finish  that  chapter.  Why 


128 


BEING  A   BOY. 


should  he  go  away  from  that  bright  blaze,  and 
the  company  that  sat  in  its  radiance,  to  the 
cold  and  solitude  of  his  chamber  ?  Why  did  n't 
the  people  who  were  sleepy  go  to  bed  ? 

How  lone- 
some the  old 
house  was ;  how 
cold  it  was,  away 
from  that  great 
central  fire  in 
the  heart  of  it ; 
how  its  timbers 
creaked  as  if  in 
the  contracting 
pinch  of  the 
frost ;  what  a 
rattling  there 
was  of  windows, 
what  a  concerted 
attack  upon  the  clapboards ;  how  the  floors 


THE  HOUSE  AT  NIGHT.  I2Q 

squeaked,  and  what  gusts  from  round  corners 
came  to  snatch  the  feeble  flame  of  the  candle 
from  the  boy's  hand.  How  he  shivered,  as  he 
paused  at  the  staircase  window  to  look  out  up- 
on the  great  fields  of  snow,  upon  the  stripped 
forest,  through  which  he  could  hear  the  wind 
raving  in  a  kind  of  fury,  and  up  at  the  black 
flying  clouds,  amid  which  the  young  moon  was 
dashing  and  driven  on  like  a  frail  shallop  at 
sea.  And  his  teeth  chattered  more  than  ever 
when  he  got  into  the  icy  sheets,  and  drew  him- 
self up  into  a  ball  in  his  flannel  nightgown, 
like  a  fox  in  his  hole. 

For  a  little  time  he  could  hear  the  noises 
down  stairs,  and  an  occasional  laugh  ;  he  could 
guess  that  now  they  were  having  cider,  and 
now  apples  were  going  round  ;  and  he  could 
feel  the  wind  tugging  at  the  house,  even  some- 
times shaking  the  bed.  But  this  did  not  last 
long.  He  soon  went  away  into  a  country  he 


I3O  BEING  A  BOY. 

always  delighted  to  be  in  ;  a  calm  place  where 
the  wind  never  blew,  and  no  one  dictated  the 
time  of  going  to  bed  to  any  one  else.  I  like 
to  think  of  him  sleeping  there,  in  such  rude 
surroundings,  ingenious,  innocent,  mischievous, 
with  no  thought  of  the  buffeting  he  is  to  get 
from  a  world  that  has  a  good  many  worse  places 
for  a  boy  than  the  hearth  of  an  old  farm-house, 
and  the  sweet,  though  undemonstrative,  affec- 
tion of  its  family  life. 

But  there  were  other  evenings  in  the  boy's 
life,  that  were  different  from  these  at  home, 
and  one  of  them  he  will  never  forget.  It 
opened  a  new  world  to  John,  and  set  him  into 
a  great  flutter.  It  produced  a  revolution  in  his 
mind  in  regard  to  neckties  ;  it  made  him  won- 
der if  greased  boots  were  quite  the  thing  com- 
pared with  blacked  boots;  and  he  wished  he 
had  a  long  looking-glass,  so  that  he  could  see, 
as  he  walked  away  from  it,  what  was  the  effect 


A  REVOLUTION  IN  LIFE.  131 

of  round  patches  on  the  portion  of  his  trousers 
he  could  not  see,  except  in  a  mirror ;  and  if 
patches  were  quite  stylish,  even  on  every-day 
trousers.  And  he  began  to  be  very  much  troub- 
led about  the  parting  of  his  hair,  and  how  to 
find  out  on  which  side  was  the  natural  part. 

The  evening  to  which  I  refer  was  that  of 
John's  first  party.  He  knew  the  girls  at  school, 
and  he  was  interested  in  some  of  them  with  a 
different  interest  from  that  he  took  in  the  boys. 
He  never  wanted  to  "  take  it  out "  with  one 
of  them,  for  an  insult,  in  a  stand-up  fight,  and 
he  instinctively  softened  a  boy's  natural  rude- 
ness when  he  was  with  them.  He  would  help 
a  timid  little  girl  to  stand  erect  and  slide  ;  he 
would  draw  her  on  his  sled,  till  his  hands  were 
stiff  with  cold,  without  a  murmur ;  he  would 
generously  give  her  red  apples  into  which  he 
longed  to  set  his  own  sharp  teeth ;  and  he 
would  cut  in  two  his  lead-pencil  for  a  girl,  when 


132  BEING  A   BOY. 

he  would  not  for  a  boy.  Had  he  not  some  of 
the  beautiful  auburn  tresses  of  Cynthia  Rudd 
in  his  skate,  spruce-gum,  and  wintergreen  box 
at  home  ?  And  yet  the  grand  sentiment  of  life 
was  little  awakened  in  John.  He  liked  best  to 
be  with  boys,  and  their  rough  play  suited  him 
better  than  the  amusements  of  the  shrinking, 
fluttering,  timid,  and  sensitive  little  girls  John 
had  not  learned  then  that  a  spider-web  is 
stronger  than  a  cable ;  or  that  a  pretty  little 
girl  could  turn  him  round  her  ringer  a  great 
deal  easier  than  a  big  bully  of  a  boy  could 
make  him  cry  "  enough." 

John  had  indeed  been  at  spelling-schools, 
and  had  accomplished  the  feat  of "  going  home 
with  a  girl "  afterwards  ;  and  he  had  been  grow- 
ing into  the  habit  of  looking  around  in  meeting 
on  Sunday,  and  noticing  how  Cynthia  was 
dressed,  and  not  enjoying  the  service  quite  as 
much  if  Cynthia  was  absent  as  when  she  was 


THE  ADVENT  OF  SENTIMENT.  133 

present.  But  there  was  very  little  sentiment 
in  all  this,  and  nothing  whatever  to  make  John 
blush  at  hearing  her  name. 

But  now 
John  was 
invited  to  a 
regular  par- 
ty. There 
was  the  in- 
vitation, in 
a  three-cor- 
nered billet, 
sealed  with 

a  transparent  wafer :  "  Miss  C.  Rudd  requests 
the  pleasure  of  the  company  of,"  etc.,  all  in  blue 
ink,  and  the  finest  kind  of  pin-scratching  writ- 
ing. What  a  precious  document  it  was  to  John  ! 
It  even  exhaled  a  faint  sort  of  perfume,  whether 
of  lavender  or  caraway-seed  he  could  not  tell 
He  read  it  over  a  hundred  times,  and  showed 


134 


BEING  A   BOY. 


it  confidentially  to  his  favorite  cousin,  who  had 
beaux  of  her  own  and  had  even  "sat  up"  with 
them  in  the  parlor.  And  from  this  sympathetic 
cousin  John  got  advice  as  to  what  he  should 
wear  and  how  he  should  conduct  himself  at 
the  party. 


XIII. 

JOHN'S   FIRST   PARTY. 

T  turned  out 
that  John  did 
not  go  after 
all  to  Cynthia 
Rudd's  party, 
having  bro- 
^  ken  through  the  ice  on 
the  river  when  he  was 
skating  that  day,  and, 
as  the  boy  who  pulled  him  out  said,  "  come 
within  an  inch  of  his  life."  But  he  took  care 
not  to  tumble  into  anything  that  should  keep 
him  from  the  next  party,  which  was  given  with 
due  formality  by  Melinda  Mayhew. 


136  BEING  A   BOY. 

John  had  been  many  a  time  to  the  house  of 
Deacon  Mayhew,  and  never  with  any  hesitation, 
even  if  he  knew  that  both  the  deacon's  daugh- 
ters —  Melinda  and  Sophronia  —  were  at  home. 
The  only  fear  he  had  felt  was  of  the  deacon's 
big  dog,  who  always  surlily  watched  him  as  he 
came  up  the  tan-bark  walk,  and  made  a  rush 
at  him  if  he  showed  the  least  sign  of  wavering. 
But  upon  the  night  of  the  party  his  courage 
vanished,  and  he  thought  he  would  rather  face 
all  the  dogs  in  town  than  knock  at  the  front 
door. 

The  parlor  was  lighted  up,  and  as  John  stood 
on  the  broad  flagging  before  the  front  door,  by 
the  lilac-bush,  he  could  hear  the  sound  of  voices 
—  girl's  voices  —  which  set  his  heart  in  a  flutter. 
He  could  face  the  whole  district  school  of  girls 
without  flinching,  —  he  did  n't  mind  'em  in  the 
meeting-house  in  their  Sunday  best ;  but  he 
began  to  be  conscious  that  now  he  was  passing 


A   NEW  SPHERE.  137 

to  a  new  sphere,  where  the  girls  are  supreme 
and  superior,  and  he  began  to  feel  for  the  first 
time  that  he  was  an  awkward  boy.  The  girl 
takes  to  society  as  naturally  as  a  duckling  does 
to  the  placid  pond,  but  with  a  semblance  of  sly 
timidity ;  the  boy  plunges  in  with  a  great  splash, 
and  hides  his  shy  awkwardness  in  noise  and 
commotion. 

When  John  entered  the  company  had  nearly 
all  come.  He  knew  them  every  one,  and  yet 
there  was  something  about  them  strange  and 
unfamiliar.  They  were  all  a  little  afraid  of  each 
other,  as  people  are  apt  to  be  when  they  are 
well  dressed  and  met  together  for  social  pur- 
poses in  the  country.  To  be  at  a  real  party  was 
a  novel  thing  for  most  of  them,  and  put  a  con- 
straint upon  them  which  they  could  not  at  once 
overcome.  Perhaps  it  was  because  they  were  in 
the  awful  parlor,  that  carpeted  room  of  hair- 
cloth furniture,  which  was  so  seldom  opened. 


138  BEING  A   BOY. 

Upon'  the  wall  hung  two  certificates  framed  in 
black,  —  one  certifying  that,  by  the  payment  of 
fifty  dollars,  Deacon  Mayhew  was  a  life  member 
of  the  American  Tract  Society,  and  the  other 
that,  by  a  like  outlay  of  bread  cast  upon  the 
waters,  his  wife  was  a  life  member  of  the  A.  B. 
C.  F.  M.,  a  portion  of  the  alphabet  which  has 
an  awful  significance  to  all  New  England  child- 
hood. These  certificates  are  a  sort  of  receipt  in 
full  for  charity,  and  are  a  constant  and  consoling 
reminder  to  the  farmer  that  he  has  discharged 
his  religious  duties. 

There  was  a  fire  on  the  broad  hearth,  and 
that,  with  the  tallow  candles  on  the  mantel- 
piece, made  quite  an  illumination  in  the  room, 
and  enabled  the  boys,  who  were  mostly  on  one 
side  of  the  room,  to  see  the  girls,  who  were 
on  the  other,  quite  plainly.  How  sweet  and 
demure  the  girls  looked,  to  be  sure !  Every 
boy  was  thinking  if  his  hair  was  slick,  and  feel- 


SHYNESS  IN  SOCIETY.  139 

ing  the  full  embarrassment  of  his  entrance  into 
fashionable  life.  It  was  queer  that  these  chil- 
dren, who  were  so  free  everywhere  else,  should 
be  so  constrained  now,  and  not  know  what  to 
do  with  themselves.  The  shooting  of  a  spark 
out  upon  the  carpet  was  a  great  relief,  and  was 
accompanied  by  a  deal  of  scrambling  to  throw 
it  back  into  the  fire,  and  caused  much  giggling. 
It  was  only  gradually  that  the  formality  was  at 
all  broken,  and  the  young  people  got  together 
and  found  their  tongues. 

John  at  length  found  himself  with  Cynthia 
Rudd,  to  -his  great  delight  and  considerable  em- 
barrassment, for  Cynthia,  who  was  older  than 
John,  never  looked  so  pretty.  To  his  surprise 
he  had  nothing  to  say  to  her.  They  had  al- 
ways found  plenty  to  talk  about  before,  but  now 
nothing  that  he  could  think  of  seemed  worth 
saying  at  a  party. 

"  It  is  a  pleasant  evening,"  said  John. 


I4O  BEING  A   BOY. 

"  It  is  quite  so,"  replied  Cynthia. 

"  Did  you  come  in  a  cutter  ? "  asked  John, 
anxiously. 

"  No ;  I  walked  on  the  crust,  and  it  was  per- 
fectly lovely  walking,"  said  Cynthia,  in  a  burst 
of  confidence. 

"  Was  it  slippery,"  continued  John. 

"  Not  very." 

John  hoped  it  would  be  slippery  —  very  — 
when  he  walked  home  with  Cynthia,  as  he  de- 
termined to  do,  but  he  did  not  dare  to  say  so, 
and  the  conversation  ran  aground  again.  John 
thought  about  his  dog  and  his  sled  and  his  yoke 
of  steers,  but  he  did  n't  see  any  way  to  bring 
them  into  conversation.  Had  she  read  the 
"  Swiss  Family  Robinson"  ?  Only  a  little  ways. 
John  said  it  was  splendid,  and  he  would  lend  it 
to  her,  for  which  she  thanked  him,  and  said, 
with  such  a  sweet  expression,  she  should  be  so 
glad  to  have  it  from  him.  That  was  encour- 
aging. 


CONVERSA  TION.  \  4 1 

And  then  John  asked  Cynthia  if  she  had  seen 
Sally  Hawkes  since  the  husking  at  their  house, 
when  Sally  found  so  many  red  ears ;  and  did  n't 
she  think  she  was  a  real  pretty  girl. 

"  Yes,  she  was  right  pretty " ;  and  Cynthia 
guessed  that  Sally  knew  it  pretty  well.  But  did 
John  like  the  color  of  her  eyes  ? 

No ;  John  did  n't  like  the  color  of  her  eyes 
exactly. 

"  Her  mouth  would  be  well  enough  if  she 
did  n't  laugh  so  much  and  show  her  teeth." 

John  said  her  mouth  was  her  worst  fea- 
ture. 

"O  no,"  said  Cynthia,  warmly ;  "her  mouth 
is  better  than  her  nose." 

John  did  n't  know  but  it  was  better  than  her 
nose,  and  he  should  like  her  looks  better  if  her 
hair  was  n't  so  dreadful  black. 

But  Cynthia,  who  could  afford  to  be  generous 
now,  said  she  liked  black  hair,  and  she  wished 


142  BEING  A  BOY. 

hers  was  dark.  Whereupon  John  protested 
that  he  liked  light  hair  —  auburn  hair  —  of  all 
things. 

And  Cynthia  said  that  Sally  was  a  dear,  good 
girl,  and  she  did  n't  believe  one  word  of  the 
story  that  she  only  really 
found  one  red  ear  at  the 
husking  that  night,  and  hid 
that  and  kept  pulling  it 
out  as  if  it  were  a  new  one. 
And  so  the  conversa- 
tion, once  started,  went  on  as  briskly  as  possible 
about  the  paring-bee  and  the  spelling-school, 
and  the  new  singing-master  who  was  coming, 
and  how  Jack  Thompson  had  gone  to  North- 
ampton to  be  a  clerk  in  a  store,  and  how  Elvira 
Reddington,  in  the  geography  class  at  school, 
was  asked  what  was  the  capital  of  Massachu- 
setts, and  had  answered  "Northampton,"  and 
all  the  school  laughed.  John  enjoyed  the  con- 


GAMES  OF  FORFEIT.  143 

versation  amazingly,  and  he  half  wished  that  he 
and  Cynthia  were  the  whole  of  the  party. 

But  the  party  had  meantime  got  into  opera- 
tion, and  the  formality  was  broken  up  when  the 
boys  and  girls  had  ventured  out  of  the  parlor 
into  the  more  comfortable  living-room,  with  its 
easy-chairs  and  every-day  things,  and  even  gone 
so  far  as  to  penetrate  the  kitchen  in  their  frolic. 
As  soon  as  they  forgot  they  were  a  party  they 
began  to  enjoy  themselves. 

But  the  real  pleasure  only  began  with  the 
games.  The  party  was  nothing  without  the 
games,  and  indeed  it  was  made  for  the  games. 
Very  likely  it  was  one  of  the  timid  girls  who 
proposed  to  play  something,  and  when  the  ice 
was  once  broken,  the  whole  company  went  into 
the  business  enthusiastically.  There  was  no 
dancing.  We  should  hope  not.  Not  in  the 
deacon's  house  ;  not  with  the  deacon's  daugh- 
ters, nor  anywhere  in  this  good  Puritanic  so- 


144  BEING  A   BOY. 

ciety.  Dancing  was  a  sin  in  itself,  and  no  one 
could  tell  what  it  would  lead  to.  But  there  was 
no  reason  why  the  boys  and  girls  should  n't  come 
together  and  kiss  each  other  during  a  whole 
evening  occasionally.  Kissing  was  a  sign  of  peace, 
and  was  not  at  all  like  taking  hold  of  hands  and 
skipping  about  to  the  scraping  of  a  wicked  fiddle. 
In  the  games  there  was  a  great  deal  of  clasp- 
ing hands,  of  going  round  in  a  circle,  of  passing 
under  each  other's  elevated  arms,  of  singing 
about  my  true  love,  and  the  end  was  kisses  dis- 
tributed with  more  or  less  partiality  according  to 

i 

the  rules  of  the  play  ;  but,  thank  Heaven,  there 
was  no  fiddler.  John  liked  it  all,  and  was  quite 
brave  about  paying  all  the  forfeits  imposed  on 
him,  even  to  the  kissing  all  the  girls  in  the 
room  ;  but  he  thought  he  could  have  amended 
that  by  kissing  a  few  of  them  a  good  many 
times  instead  of  kissing  them  all  once. 

But  John  was  destined  to  have  a  damper  put 


A   FASCINATING   GAME.  145 

upon  his  enjoyment  They  were  playing  a  most 
fascinating  game,  in  which  they  all  stand  in  a  cir- 
cle and  sing  a  philandering  song,  except  one  who 
is  in  the  centre  of  the  ring,  and  holds  a  cushion. 
At  a  certain  word  in  the  song,  the  one  in  the 
centre  throws  the  cushion  at  the  feet  of  some 
one  in  the  ring,  indicating  thereby  the  choice  of 
a  mate,  and  then  the  two  sweetly  kneel  upon  the 
cushion,  like  two  meek  angels,  and  —  and  so 
forth.  Then  the  chosen  one  takes  the  cushion 
and  the  delightful  play  goes  on.  It  is  very  easy, 
as  it  will  be  seen,  to  learn  how  to  play  it.  Cyn- 
thia was  holding  the  cushion,  and  at  the  fatal 
word  she  threw  it  down,  not  before  John,  but 
in  front  of  Ephraim  Leggett  And  they  two 
kneeled,  and  so  forth.  John  was  astounded.  He 
had  never  conceived  of  such  perfidy  in  the  female 
heart.  He  felt  like  wiping  Ephraim  off  the  face 
of  the  earth,  only  Ephraim  was  older  and  bigger 
than  he.  When  it  came  his  turn  at  length,  — 


146  BEING  A  BOY. 

thanks  to  a  plain  little  girl  for  whose  admiration 
he  did  n't  care  a  straw,  he  threw  the  cushion 
down  before  Melinda  Mayhew  with  all  the  de- 
votion he  could  muster,  and  a  dagger  look  at 
Cynthia.  And  Cynthia's  perfidious  smile  only 
enraged  him  the  more.  John  felt  wronged,  and 
worked  himself  up  to  pass  a  wretched  evening. 

When  supper  came  he  never  went  near  Cyn- 
thia, and  busied  himself  in  carrying  different 
kinds  of  pie  and  cake,  and  red  apples  and  cider, 
to  the  girls  he  liked  the  least.  He  shunned 
Cynthia,  and  when  he  was  accidentally  near 
her,  and  she  asked  him  if  he  would  get  her  a 
glass  of  cider,  he  rudely  told  her  —  like  a  goose 
as  he  was — that  she  had  better  ask  Ephraim. 
That  seemed  to  him  very  smart ;  but  he  got 
more  and  more  miserable,  and  began  to  feel 
that  he  was  making  himself  ridiculous. 

Girls  have  a  great  deal  more  good  sense  in 
such  matters  than  boys.  Cynthia  went  to  John, 


"SEEING"  HER  HOME. 
at  length,  and  asked  him  simply  what  the  matter 


was.     John  blushed,  and    said 
that    nothing  was   the  matter. 
Cynthia  said  that  it  would  n't 
do  for  two  people  always  to  be 
together   at   a  party ;     and  so 
they  made  up,  and 
John  obtained  per- 
mission   to 
Cynthia  home. 

It  was  after  half 
past  nine  when  the 
great  festivities  at 
the  Deacon's  broke 
up,  and  John 
walked  home  with 


148  BEING  A  BOY. 

Cynthia  over  the  shining  crust  and  under  the 
stars.  It  was  mostly  a  silent  walk,  for  this  was 
also  an  occasion  when  it  is  difficult  to  find  any- 
thing fit  to  say.  And  John  was  thinking  all  the 
way  how  he  should  bid  Cynthia  good  night ; 
whether  it  would  do  and  whether  it  would  n't  do, 
this  not  being  a  game,  and  no  forfeits  attaching 
to  it.  When  they  reached  the  gate  there  was  an 
awkward  little  pause.  John  said  the  stars  were 
uncommonly  bright.  Cynthia  did  not  deny  it, 
but  waited  a  minute  and  then  turned  abruptly 
away,  with  "  Good  night,  John  !  " 

"  Good  night,  Cynthia !  " 

And  the  party  was  over,  and  Cynthia  was 
gone,  and  John  went  home  in  a  kind  of  dissatis- 
faction with  himself. 

It  was  long  before  he  could  go  to  sleep  for 
thinking  of  the  new  world  opened  to  him,  and 
imagining  how  he  would  act  under  a  hundred 
different  circumstances,  and  what  he  would  say, 


AFTER   THE  PARTY.  149 

and  what  Cynthia  would  say ;  but  a  dream  at 
length  came,  and  led  him  away  to  a  great  city 
and  a  brilliant  house ;  and  while  he  was  there 
he  heard  a  loud  rapping  on  the  under  floor,  and 
saw  that  it  was  daylight. 


XIV. 

THE   SUGAR  CAMP. 

THINK  there  is  no  part  of  farming  the 
boy  enjoys  more  than  the  making  of 
maple  sugar  ;  it  is  better  than  "  blackber- 
rying,"  and  nearly  as  good  as  fishing. 
And  one  reason  he  likes  this  work  is  that 
somebody  else  does  the  most  of  it.  It  is  a 
sort  of  work  in  which  he  can  appear  to  be 
very  active,  and  yet  not  do  much. 

And  it  exactly  suits  the  temperament  of  a 
real  boy  to  be  very  busy  about  nothing.  If 
the  power,  for  instance,  that  is  expended  in 
play  by  a  boy  between  the  ages  of  eight  and 
fourteen  could  be  applied  to  some  industry,  we 
should  see  wonderful  results.  But  a  boy  is  like 


WASTED  ELECTRICITY.  151 

a  galvanic  battery  that  is  not  in  connection 
with  anything ;  he  generates  electricity  and 
plays  it  off  into  the  air  with  the  most  reckless 
prodigality.  And  I,  for  one,  would  n't  have  it 
otherwise.  It  is  as  much  a  boy's  business  to 
play  off  his  energies  into  space  as  it  is  for  a 
flower  to  blow  or  a  catbird  to  sing  snatches 
of  the  tunes  of  all  the  other  birds. 

In  my  day  maple-sugar-making  used  to  be 
something  between  picnicking  and  being  ship- 
wrecked on  a  fertile  island,  where  one  should 
save  from  the  wreck  tubs  and  augurs,  and 
great  kettles  and  pork,  and  hen's-eggs  and 
rye-and-indian  bread,  and  begin  at  once  to 
lead  the  sweetest  life  in  the  world.  I  am  told 
that  it  is  something  different  nowadays,  and 
that  there  is  more  desire  to  save  the  sap,  and 
make  good,  pure  sugar,  and  sell  it  for  a  large 
price,  than  there  used  to  be,  and  that  the  old 
fun  and  picturesqueness  of  the  business  are 


152  BEING  A   BOY. 

pretty  much  gone.  I  am  told  that  it  is  the 
custom  to  carefully  collect  the  sap  and  bring 
it  to  the  house,  where  there  are  built  brick 
arches,  over  which  it  is  evaporated  in  shallow 
pans,  and  that  pains  is  taken  to  keep  the  leaves, 
sticks,  and  ashes  and  coals  out  of  it,  and  that 
the  sugar  is  clarified ;  and  that,  in  short,  it 
is  a  money-making  business,  in  which  there  is 
very  little  fun,  and  that  the  boy  is  not  allowed 
to  dip  his  paddle  into  the  kettle  of  boiling 
sugar  and  lick  off  the  delicious  sirup.  The 
prohibition  may  improve  the  sugar,  but  it  is 
cruel  to  the  boy. 

As  I  remember  the  New  England  boy  (and 
I  am  very  intimate  with  one),  he  used  to  be 
on  the  qui  vive  in  the  spring  for  the  sap  to 
begin  running.  I  think  he  discovered  it  as 
soon  as  anybody.  Perhaps  he  knew  it  by  a 
feeling  of  something  starting  in  his  own  veins, 
—  a  sort  of  spring  stir  in  his  legs  and  arms, 


THE  SPRING  STIR. 


153 


which  tempted  him  to  stand  on  his  head,  or 
throw  a  handspring,  if  he  could  find  a  spot  of 
ground  from  which  the  snow  had  melted.  The 
sap  stirs  early  in  the  legs  of  a  country  boy, 
and  shows  itself  in  uneasi- 
ness in  the  toes,  which 
get  tired  of  boots,  and  want 
to  come  out  and  touch  the 
soil  just  as  soon  as  the 
sun  has  warmed  it  a  little. 
The  country  boy  goes  bare- 
foot just  as  naturally  as  the 
trees  burst  their  buds,  which 
were  packed  and  varnished 
over  in  the  fall  to  keep  the 
water  and  the  frost  out. 
Perhaps  the  boy  has  been 
out  digging  into  the  maple- 
trees  with  his  jack-knife;  at  any  rate,  he  is 
pretty  sure  to  announce  the  discovery  as  he 


>« 


154  BEING  A  BOY. 

comes  running  into  the  house  in  a  great  state 
of  excitement  —  as  if  he  had  heard  a  hen  cackle 
in  the  barn  —  with,  "  Sap  's  runnin' ! " 

And  then,  indeed,  the  stir  and  excitement 
begin.  The  sap-buckets,  which  have  been  stored 
in  the  garret  over  the  wood-house,  and  which 
the  boy  has  occasionally  climbed  up  to  look  at 
with  another  boy,  for  they  are  full  of  sweet 
suggestions  of  the  annual  spring  frolic,  —  the 
sap-buckets  are  brought  down  and  set  out  on 
the  south  side  of  the  house  and  scalded.  The 
snow  is  still  a  foot  or  two  feet  deep  in  the 
woods,  and  the  ox-sled  is  got  out  to  make  a 
road  to  the  sugar  camp,  and  the  campaign  be- 
gins. The  boy  is  everywhere  present,  superin- 
tending everything,  asking  questions,  and  filled 
with  a  desire  to  help  the  excitement. 

It  is  a  great  day  when  the  cart  is  loaded 
with  the  buckets  and  the  procession  starts  into 
the  woods.  The  sun  shines  almost  unobstruct- 


THE  STARTING  SAP.  155 

edly  into  the  forest,  for  there  are  only  naked 
branches  to  bar  it ;  the  snow  is  soft  and  be- 
ginning to  sink  down,  leaving  the  young  bushes 
spindling  up  everywhere ;  the  snow-birds  are 
twittering  about,  and  the  noise  of  shouting  and 
of  the  blows  of  the  axe  echoes  far  and  wide. 
This  is  spring,  and  the  boy  can  scarcely  con- 
tain his  delight  that  his  out-door  life  is  about 
to  begin  again. 

In  the  first  place  the  men  go  about  and  tap 
the  trees,  drive  in  the  spouts,  and  hang  the 
buckets  under.  The  boy  watches  all  these 
operations  with  the  greatest  interest.  He  wishes 
that  some  time  when  a  hole  is  bored  in  a  tree 
that  the  sap  would  spout  out  in  a  stream  as  it 
does  when  a  cider- barrel  is  tapped ;  but  it 
never  does,  it  only  drops,  sometimes  almost  in 
a  stream,  but  on  the  whole  slowly,  and  the 
boy  learns  that  the  sweet  things  of  the  world 
have  to  be  patiently  waited  for,  and  do  not 
usually  come  otherwise  than  drop  by  drop. 


BEING  A   BOY. 


Then  the  camp  is  to  be  cleared  of  snow. 
The  shanty  is  re-covered  with  boughs.  In  front 
of  it  two  enormous  logs  are  rolled  nearly  to- 
gether, and  a  fire  is  built  between  them. 


Forked  sticks  are  "set  at  each  end,  and  a  long 
pole  is  laid  on  them,  and  on  this  are  hung  the 
great  caldron  kettles.  The  huge  hogsheads 
are  turned  right  side  up,  and  cleaned  out  to 
receive  the  sap  that  is  gathered.  And  now,  if 
there  is  a  good  "  sap  run,"  the  establishment  is 
under  full  headway. 


THE  SAP-BOILING  157 

The  great  fire  that  is  kindled  up  is  never  let 
out,  night  or  day,  as  long  as  the  season  lasts. 
Somebody  is  always  cutting  wood  to  feed  it  ; 
somebody  is  busy  most  of  the  time  gathering 
in  the  sap ;  somebody  is  required  to  watch  the 
kettles  that  they  do  not  boil  over,  and  to  fill 
them.  It  is  not  the  boy,  however  ;  he  is  too 
busy  with  things  in  general^to  be  of  any  use 
in  details.  He  has  his  own  little  sap-yoke  and 
small  pails,  with  which  he  gathers  the  sweet 
liquid.  He  has  a  little  boiling-place  of  his 
own,  with  small  logs  and  a  tiny  kettle.  In  the 
great  kettles  the  boiling  goes  on  slowly,  and 
the  liquid,  as  it  thickens,  is  dipped  from  one 
to  another,  until  in  the  end  kettle  it  is  reduced 
to  sirup,  and  is  taken  out  to  cool  and  settle, 
until  enough  is  made  to  "  sugar  off."  To  "  su- 
gar off"  is  to  boil  the  syrup  until  it  is  thick 
enough  to  crystallize  into  sugar.  This  is  the 
grand  event,  and  is  only  done  once  in  two  or 
three  days. 


158  BEING  A   BOY. 

But  the  boy's  desire  is  to  "sugar  off"  per- 
petually. He  boils  his  kettle  down  as  rapidly 
as  possible ;  he  is  not  particular  about  chips, 
scum,  or  ashes  ;  he  is  apt  to  burn  his  sugar ; 
but  if  he  can  get  enough  to  make  a  little  wax 
on  the  snow,  or  to  scrape  from  the  bottom  of 
the  kettle  with  his  wooden  paddle,  he  is  happy. 
A  good  deal  is  wasted  on  his  hands,  and  the 
outside  of  his  face,  and  on  his  clothes,  but  he 
does  not  care ;  he  is  not  stingy. 

To  watch  the  operations  of  the  big  fire  gives 
him  constant  pleasure.  Sometimes  he  is  left 
to  watch  the  boiling  kettles,  with  a  piece  of 
pork  tied  on  the  end  of  a  stick,  which  he  dips 
into  the  boiling  mass  when  it  threatens  to  go 
over.  He  is  constantly  tasting  of  it,  however, 
to  see  if  it  is  not  almost  sirup.  He  has  a 
long  round  stick,  whittled  smooth  at  one  end, 
which  he  uses  for  this  purpose,  at  the  constant 
risk  of  burning  his  tongue.  The  smoke  blows 


SVGA  RING-  OFF.  159 

in  his  face ;  he  is  grimy  with  ashes  ;  he  is  alto- 
gether such  a  mass  of  dirt,  stickiness,  and 
sweetness,  that  his  own  mother  would  n't  know 
him. 

He  likes  to  boil  eggs  with  the  hired  man  in 
the  hot  sap  ;  he  likes  to  roast  potatoes  in  the 
ashes,  and  he  would  live  in  the  camp  day  and 
night  if  he  were  permitted.  Some  of  the  hired 
men  sleep  in  the  bough  shanty  and  keep  the 
fire  blazing  all  night.  To  sleep  there  with 
them,  and  awake  in  the  night  and  hear  the 
wind  in  the  trees,  and  see  the  sparks  fly  up  to 
the  sky,  is  a  perfect  realization  of  all  the  sto- 
ries of  adventures  he  has  ever  read.  He  tells 
the  other  boys  afterwards  that  he  heard  some- 
thing in  the  night  that  sounded  very  much  like 
a  bear.  The  hired  man  says  that  he  was  very 
much  scared  by  the  hooting  of  an  owl. 

The  great  occasions  for  the  boy,  though,  are 
the  times  of  "  sugaring-off."  Sometimes  this 


I6O  BEING  A  BOY. 

used  to  be  done  in  the  evening,  and  it  was 
made  the  excuse  for  a  frolic  in  the  camp.  The 
neighbors  were  invited ;  sometimes  even  the 
pretty  girls  from  the  village,  who  filled  all  the 
woods  with  their  sweet  voices  and  merry  laugh- 
ter and  little  affectations  of  fright.  The  white 
snow  still  lies  on  all  the  ground  except  the 
warm  spot  about  the  camp.  The  tree  branches 
all  show  distinctly  in  the  light  of  the  fire, 
which  sends  its  ruddy  glare  far  into  the  dark- 
ness, and  lights  up  the  bough  shanty,  the  hogs- 
heads, the  buckets  on  the  trees,  and  the  group 
about  the  boiling  kettles,  until  the  scene  is  like 
something  taken  out  of  a  fairy  play.  If  Rem- 
brandt could  have  seen  a  sugar  party  in  a 
New  England  wood  he  would  have  made  out 
of  its  strong  contrasts  of  light  and  shade  one 
of  the  finest  pictures  in  the  world.  But  Rem- 
brandt was  not  born  in  Massachusetts  ;  people 
hardly  ever  do  know  where  to  be  born  until  it  is 


THE  SUGAR  PARTY.  l6l 

too  late.  Being  born  in  the  right  place  is  a 
thing  that  has  been  very  much  neglected. 

At  these  sugar  parties  every  one  was  expected 
to  eat  as  much  sugar  as  possible ;  and  those 
who  are  practised  in  it  can  eat  a  great  deal. 
It  is  a  peculiarity  about  eating  warm  maple 
sugar,  that  though  you  may  eat  so  much  of  it 
one  day  as  to  be  sick  and  loathe  the  thought 
of  it,  you  will  want  it  the  next  day  more  than 
ever.  At  the  "sugaring-off"  they  used  to  pour 
the  hot  sugar  upon  the  snow,  where  it  con- 
gealed, without  crystallizing,  into  a  sort  of  wax, 
which  I  do  suppose  is  the  most  delicious  sub- 
stance that  was  ever  invented.  And  it  takes  a 
great  while  to  eat  it.  If  one  should  close  his 
teeth  firmly  on  a  ball  of  it,  he  would  be  una- 
ble to  open  his  mouth  until  it  dissolved.  The 
sensation  while  it  is  melting  is  very  pleasant, 
but  one  cannot  converse. 

The  boy  used  to  make  a  big  lump  of  it  and 


1 62  BEING  A  BOY. 

give  it  to  the  dog,  who  seized  it  with  great 
avidity,  and  closed  his  jaws  on  it,  as  dogs  will 
on  anything.  It  was  funny  the  next  moment 
to  see  the  expression  of  perfect  surprise  on  the 
dog's  face  when  he  found  that  he  could  not 
open  his  jaws.  He  shook  his  head ;  he  sat 
down  in  despair ;  he  ran  round  in  a  circle  ;  he 
dashed  into  the  woods  and  back  again.  He 
did  everything  except  climb  a  tree,  and  howl. 
It  would  have  been  such  a  relief  to  him  if  he 
could  have  howled.  But  that  was  the  one 
thing  he  could  not  do. 


XV. 

THE   HEART   OF   NEW  ENGLAND. 


164  BEING  A   BOY. 

thing  in  the  heart  of  the  New  England  hills  to 
feed  the  imagination  of  the  boy,  and  excite 
his  longing  for  strange  countries.  I  scarcely 
know  what  the  subtle  influence  is  that  forms 
him  and  attracts  him  in  the  most  fascinating 
and  aromatic  of  all  lands,  and  yet  urges  him 
away  from  all  the  sweet  delights  of  his  home 
to  become  a  roamer  in  literature  and  in  the 
world,  —  a  poet  and  a  wanderer.  There  is 
something  in  the  soil  and  the  pure  air,  I  sus- 
pect, that  promises  more  romance  than  is  forth- 
coming, that  excites  the  imagination  without 
satisfying  it,  and  begets  the  desire  of  adventure. 
And  the  prosaic  life  of  the  sweet  home  does 
not  at  all  correspond  to  the  boy's  dreams  of  the 
world.  In  the  good  old  days,  I  am  told,  the  boys 
on  the  coast  ran  away  and  became  sailors ;  the 
country  boys  waited  till  they  grew  big  enough 
to  be  missionaries,  and  then  they  sailed  away, 
and  met  the  coast  boys  in  foreign  ports. 


IN  A    TREE-TOP,  165 

John  used  to  spend  hours  in  the  top  of  a 
slender  hickory-tree  that  a  little  detached  it- 
self from  the  forest  which  crowned  the  brow 
of  the  steep  and  lofty  pasture  behind  his 
house.  He  was  sent  to  make  war  on  the 
bushes  that  constantly  encroached  upon  the 
pasture  land ;  but  John  had  no  hostility  to 
any  growing  thing,  and  a  very  little  bush- 
whacking satisfied  him.  When  he  had  grubbed 
up  a  few  laurels  and  young  tree-sprouts,  he 
was  wont  to  retire  into  his  favorite  post  of  ob- 
servation and  meditation.  Perhaps  he  fancied 
that  the  wide-swaying  stem  to  which  he  clung 
was  the  mast  of  a  ship  ;  that  the  tossing  forest 
behind  him  was  the  heaving  waves  of  the 
sea ;  and  that  the  wind  which  moaned  over  the 
woods  and  murmured  in  the  leaves,  and  now  and 
then  sent  him  a  wide  circuit  in  the  air,  as  if  he 
had  been  a  blackbird  on  the  tiptop  of  a  spruce, 
was  an  ocean  gale.  What  life,  and  action,  and 


1 66  BEING  A   BOY. 

heroism  there  was  to  him  in  the  multitudinous 
roar  of  the  forest,  and  what  an  eternity  of  ex- 
istence in  the  monologue  of  the  river,  which 


river  sparkled   and 

danced  and  went  on 
now  in  a  smooth  amber  current,  now 
fretted  by  the  pebbles,  but  always  with  that 
continuous  busy  song.  John  never  knew  that 
noise  to  cease,  and  he  doubted  not  if  he  stayed 
here  a  thousand  years  that  same  loud  murmur 
would  fill  the  air. 


THE  ROARING  RIVER.  167 

On  it  went,  under  the  wide  spans  of  the  old 
wooden,  covered  bridge,  swirling  around  the 
great  rocks  on  which  the  piers  stood,  spread- 
ing away  below  in  shallows,  and  taking  the 
shadows  of  a  row  of  maples  that  lined  the 
green  shore.  Save  this  roar  no  sound  reached 
him,  except  now  and  then  the  rumble  of  a  wagon 
on  the  bridge,  or  the  muffled  far-off  voices  of 
some  chance  passers  on  the  road.  Seen  from 
this  high  perch,  the  familiar  village,  sending  its 
brown  roofs  and  white  spires  up  through  the 
green  foliage,  had  a  strange  aspect,  and  was 
like  some  town  in  a  book,  say  a  village  nestled 
in  the  Swiss  mountains,  or  something  in  Bo- 
hemia. And  there,  beyond  the  purple  hills  of 
Bozrah,  and  not  so  far  as  the  stony  pastures  of 
Zoah,  whither  John  had  helped  drive  the  colts 
and  young  stock  in  the  spring,  might  be  perhaps 
Jerusalem  itself.  John  had  himself  once  been 
to  the  land  of  Canaan  with  his  grandfather, 


1 68  BEING  A   BOY. 

when  he  was  a  very  small  boy ;  and  he  had 
once  seen  an  actual,  no-mistake  Jew,  a  myste- 
rious person,  with  uncut  beard  and  long  hair, 
who  sold  scythe-snaths  in  that  region,  and  about 
whom  there  was  a  rumor  that  he  was  once 
caught  and  shaved  by  the  indignant  farmers, 
who  apprehended  in  his  long  locks  a  contempt 
of  the  Christian  religion.  O,  the  world  had  vast 
possibilities  for  John.  Away  to  the  south,  up 
a  vast  basin  of  forest,  there  was  a  notch  in  the 
horizon  and  an  opening  in  the  line  of  woods, 
where  the  road  ran.  Through  this  opening 
John  imagined  an  army  might  appear,  perhaps 
British,  perhaps  Turks,  and  banners  of  red  and 
of  yellow  advance,  and  a  cannon  wheel  about 
and  point  its  long  nose  and  open  on  the  valley. 
He  fancied  the  army,  after  this  salute,  winding 
down  the  mountain  road,  deploying  in  the  mead- 
ows, and  giving  the  valley  to  pillage  and  to  flame. 
In  which  event  his  position  would  be  an  excel- 


A  BAD  BOY.  169 

lent  one  for  observation  and  for  safety.  While 
he  was  in  the  height  of  this  engagement,  per- 
haps the  horn  would  be  blown  from  the  back 
porch,  reminding  him  that  it  was  time  to  quit 
cutting  brush  and  go  for  the  cows.  As  if  there 
were  no  better  use  for  a  warrior  and  a  poet  in 
New  England  than  to  send  him  for  the  cows  ! 
John  knew  a  boy  —  a  bad  enough  boy  I  dare 
say  —  who  afterwards  became  a  general  in  the 
war,  and  went  to  Congress  and  got  to  be  a  real 
governor,  who  used  also  to  be  sent  to  cut  brush 
in  the  back  pastures,  and  hated  it  in  his  very 
soul  ;  and  by  his  wrong  conduct  forecast  what 
kind  of  a  man  he  would  be.  This  boy,  as  soon 
as  he  had  cut  about  one  brush,  would  seek  for 
one  of  several  holes  in  the  ground  (and  he  was 
familiar  with  several),  in  which  lived  a  white-and- 
black  animal  that  must  always  be  nameless  in  a 
book,  but  an  animal  quite  capable  of  the  most 
pungent  defence  of  himself.  This  young  aspi- 


I/O  BEING  A   BOY. 

rant  to  Congress  would  cut  a  long  stick,  with  a 
little  crotch  in  the  end  of  it,  and  run  it  into  the 
hole  ;  and  when  the  crotch  was  punched  into 
the  fur  and  skin  of  the  animal,  he  would  twist  the 
stick  round  till  it  got  a  good  grip  on  the  skin, 
and  then  he  would  pull  the  beast  out ;  and  when 
he  got  the  white-and-black  just  out  of  the  hole 
so  that  his  dog  could  seize  him,  the  boy  would 
take  to  his  heels,  and  leave  the  two  to  fight  it 
out,  content  to  scent  the  battle  afar  off.  And 
this  boy,  who  was  in  training  for  public  life, 
would  do  this  sort  of  thing  all  the  afternoon,  and 
when  the  sun  told  him  that  he  had  spent  long 
enough  time  cutting  brush,  he  would  industri- 
ously go  home  as  innocent  as  anybody.  There 
are  few  such  boys  as  this  nowadays  ;  and  that 
is  the  reason  why  the  New  England  pastures 
are  so  much  overgrown  with  brush. 

John  himself  preferred  to  hunt  the  pugnacious 
woodchuck.     He  bore   a  special  grudge  against 


A  PERSONAL  HOSTILITY.  I/I 

this  clover-eater,  beyond  the  usual  hostility  that 
boys  feel  for  any  wild  animal.  One  day  on  his 
way  to  school  a  woodchuck  crossed  the  road 
before  him,  and  John  gave  chase.  The  wood- 
chuck  scrambled  into  an  orchard  and  climbed  a 
small  apple-tree.  John  thought  this  a  most 
cowardly  and  unfair  retreat,  and  stood  under  the 
tree  and  taunted  the  animal  and  stoned  it. 
Thereupon  the  woodchuck  dropped  down  on 
John  and  seized  him  by  the  leg  of  his  trousers. 
John  was  both  enraged  and  scared  by  this  das- 
tardly attack ;  the  teeth  of  the  enemy  went 
through  the  cloth  and  met ;  and  there  he  hung. 
John  then  made  a  pivot  of  one  leg  and  whirled 
himself  around,  swinging  the  woodchuck  in  the 
air,  until  he  shook  him  off;  but  in  his  depart- 
ure the  woodchuck  carried  away  a  large  piece 
of  John's  summer  trousers-leg.  The  boy  never 
forgot  it.  And  whenever  he  had  a  holiday  he 
used  to  expend  an  amount  of  labor  and  inge- 


172  BEING  A   BOY. 

nuity  in  the  pursuit  of  woodchucks  that  would 
have  made  his  fortune  in  any  useful  pursuit. 
There  was  a  hill  pasture,  down  on  one  side  of 
which  ran  a  small  brook,  and  this  pasture  was 
full  of  woodchuck-holes.  It  required  the  assist- 
ance of  several  boys  to  capture  a  woodchuck. 
It  was  first  necessary  by  patient  watching  to 
ascertain  that  the  woodchuck  was  at  home. 
When  one  was  seen  to  enter  his  burrow,  then  all 
the  entries  to  it  except  one  —  there  are  usually 
three — were  plugged  up  with  stones.  A  boy 
and  a  dog  were  then  left  to  watch  the  open 
hole,  while  John  and  his  comrades  went  to  the 
brook  and  began  to  dig  a  canal,  to  turn  the 
water  into  the  residence  of  the  woodchuck. 
This  was  often  a  difficult  feat  of  engineering, 
and  a  long  job.  Often  it  took  more  than  half  a 
day  of  hard  labor  with  shovel  and  hoe  to  dig  the 
canal.  But  when  the  canal  was  finished  and 
the  water  began  to  pour  into  the  hole,  the  ex- 


DROWNED   OUT.  173 

citement  began.  How  long  would  it  take  to  fill 
the  hole  and  drown  out  the  woodchuck  ?  Some- 
times it  seemed  as  if  the  hole  was  a  bottomless 
pit.  But  sooner  or  later  the  water  would  rise 
in  it,  and  then  there  was  sure  to  be  seen  the 
nose  of  the  woodchuck,  keeping  itself  on  a  level 
with  the  rising  flood.  It  was  piteous  to  see  the 
anxious  look  of  the  hunted,  half-drowned  crea- 
ture as  it  came  to  the  surface  and  caught  sight  of 
the  dog.  There  the  dog  stood,  at  the  mouth  of 
the  hole,  quivering  with  excitement  from  his 
nose  to  the  tip  of  his  tail,  and  behind  him  were 
the  cruel  boys  dancing  with  joy  and  setting  the 
dog  on.  The  poor  creature  would  disappear  in 
the  water  in  terror ;  but  he  must  breathe,  and 
out  would  come  his  nose  again,  nearer  the  dog 
each  time.  At  last  the  water  ran  out  of  the 
hole  as  well  as  in,  and  the  soaked  beast  came 
with  it,  and  made  a  desperate  rush.  But  in  a 
trice  the  dog  had  him,  and  the  boys  stood  off 


174  BEING  A  BOY. 

in  a  circle,  with  stones  in  their  hands,  to  see 
what  they  called  "  fair  play."  They  maintained 
perfect  "  neutrality  "  so  long  as  the  dog  was  get- 
ting the  best  of  the  woodchuck  ;  but  if  the  latter 
was  likely  to  escape,  they  "  interfered  "  in  the 
interest  of  peace  and  the  "  balance  of  power,"  and 
killed  the  woodchuck.  This  is  a  boy's  notion  of 
justice;  of  course,  he'd  no  business  to  be  a 
woodchuck,  —  an  "  unspeakable  woodchuck." 

I  used  the  word  "  aromatic "  in  relation  to 
the  New  England  soil.  John  knew  very  well 
all  its  sweet,  aromatic,  pungent,  and  medicinal 
products,  and  liked  to  search  for  the  scented 
herbs  and  the  wild  fruits  and  exquisite  flow- 
ers ;  but  he  did  not  then  know,  and  few  do 
know,  that  there  is  no  part  of  the  globe  where 
the  subtle  chemistry  of  the  earth  produces  more 
that  is  agreeable  to  the  senses  than  a  New 
England  hill-pasture  and  the  green  meadow  at 
its  foot.  The  poets  have  succeeded  in  turn- 


THE  AROMATIC  LAND.  1/5 

ing  our  attention  from  it  to  the  comparatively 


barren  Orient  as  the  land  of 
sweet-smelling  spices  and  odor- 
ous gums.  And  it  is  indeed  a 
constant  surprise  that  this  poor 
and  stony  soil  elaborates  and 
grows  so  many  delicate  and  aro- 
matic products. 

John,  it    is  true,  did 
not    care   much    for 
anything  that  did 
not    appeal  to 
his   taste  and 
smell  and  delight  in  brilliant  color ;  and  he  trod 


176  BEING  A   BOY. 

down  the  exquisite  ferns  and  the  wonderful 
mosses  without  compunction.  But  he  gath- 
ered from  the  crevices  of  the  rocks  the  colum- 
bine and  the  eglantine  and  the  blue  harebell ; 
he  picked  the  high-flavored  alpine  strawberry, 
the  blueberry,  the  boxberry,  wild  currants  and 
gooseberries  and  fox-grapes  ;  he  brought  home 
armfuls  of  the  pink-and-white  laurel  and  the 
wild  honeysuckle ;  he  dug  the  roots  of  the  fra- 
grant sassafras  and  of  the  sweet-flag ;  he  ate 
the  tender  leaves  of  the  wintergreen  and  its 
red  berries ;  he  gathered  the  peppermint  and 
the  spearmint ;  he  gnawed  the  twigs  of  the 
black-birch ;  there  was  a  stout  fern  which  he 
called  "  brake,"  which  he  pulled  up,  and  found 
that  the  soft  end  "  tasted  good "  ;  he  dug  the 
amber  gum  from  the  spruce-tree,  and  liked  to 
smell,  though  he  could  not  chew,  the  gum  of 
the  wild  cherry  ;  it  was  his  melancholy  duty 
to  bring  home  such  medicinal  herbs  for  the 


THE  SWEET  FERN. 

garret  as  the  gold-thread,  the  tansy,  and  the 
loathsome  "boneset";  and  he  laid  in  for  the 
winter,  like  a  squirrel,  stores  of  beechnuts,  hazel- 
nuts,  hickory-nuts,  chestnuts,  and  butternuts. 
But  that  which  lives  most  vividly  in  his  memory 
and  most  strongly  draws  him  back  to  the  New 
England  hills  is  the  aromatic  sweet-fern ;  he 
likes  to  eat  its  spicy  seeds,  and  to  crush  in  his 
hands  its  fragrant  leaves  ;  their  odor  is  the 
unique  essence  of  New  England. 


XVI. 

JOHN'S   REVIVAL. 


HE     New 
England 
country-boy 
of  the    last 
generation 
never    heard 
o  f    Christmas. 
There  was   no 
such   day  in   his 
calendar.   If  John 
ever  came  across 
it  in  his  reading, 
he  attached  no  meaning  to  the  word. 


CHRISTMAS.  1/9 

If  his  curiosity  had  been  aroused,  and  he 
had  asked  his  elders  about  it,  he  might  have 
got  the  dim  impression  that  it  was  a  kind  of 
Popish  holiday,  the  celebration  of  which  was 
about  as  wicked  as  "card-playing,"  or  being  a 
"democrat."  John  knew  a  couple  of  desper- 
ately bad  boys  who  were  reported  to  play 
"seven-up"  in  a  barn,  on  the  haymow,  and  the 
enormity  of  this  practice  made  him  shudder. 
He  had  once  seen  a  pack  of  greasy  "playing- 
cards,"  and  it  seemed  to  him  to  contain  the 
quintessence  of  sin.  If  he  had  desired  to  defy 
all  Divine  law  and  outrage  all  human  society, 
he  felt  that  he  could  do  it  by  shuffling  them. 
And  he  was  quite  right.  The  two  bad  boys 
enjoyed  in  stealth  their  scandalous  pastime,  be- 
cause they  knew  it  was  the  most  wicked  thing 
they  could  do.  If  it  had  been  as  sinless  as 
playing  marbles,  they  would  n't  have  cared  for 
it.  John  sometimes  drove  past  a  brown,  turn- 


ISO  BEING  A  BOY. 

ble-down  farm-house,  whose  shiftless  inhabitants, 
it  was  said,  were  card-playing  people  ;  and  it  is 
impossible  to  describe  how  wicked  that  house 
appeared  to  John.  He  almost  expected  to  see 
its  shingles  stand  on  end.  In  the  old  New 
England  one  could  not  in  any  other  way  so 
express  his  con-tempt  of  all  holy  and  orderly 
life  as  by  playing  cards  for  amusement. 

There  was  no  element  of  Christmas  in  John's 
life,  any  more  than  there  was  of  Easter ;  and 
probably  nobody  about  him  could  have  ex- 
plained Easter ;  and  he  escaped  all  the  demor- 
alization attending  Christmas  gifts.  Indeed,  he 
never  had  any  presents  of  any  kind,  either  on 
his  birthday  or  any  other  day.  He  expected 
nothing  that  he  did  not  earn,  or  make  in  the 
way  of  "trade"  with  another  boy.  He  was 
taught  to  work  for  what  he  received.  He  even 
earned,  as  I  said,  the  extra  holidays  of  the 
day  after  the  "Fourth"  and  the  day  after 


DREAR  Y  EXPECTA  TION.  1 8 1 

Thanksgiving.  Of  the  free  grace  and  gifts  of 
Christmas  he  had  no  conception.  The  single 
and  melancholy  association  he  had  with  it  was 
the  quaking  hymn  which  his  grandfather  used 
to  sing  in  a  cracked  and  quavering  voice, — 

"  While  shepherds  watched  their  flocks  by  night, 
All  seated  on  the  ground." 

The  "glory"  that  "shone  around"  at  the  end 
of  it — the  doleful  voice  always  repeating,  "and 
glory  shone  around  "  —  made  John  as  miserable 
as  "  Hark !  from  the  tombs."  It  was  all  one 
dreary  expectation  of  something  uncomfortable. 
It  was,  in  short,  "  religion."  You  'd  got  to  have 
it  some  time  ;  that  John  believed.  But  it  lay 
in  his  unthinking  mind  to  put  off  the  "  Hark ! 
from  the  tombs "  enjoyment  as  long  as  possi- 
ble. He  experienced  a  kind  of  delightful  wick- 
edness in  indulging  his  dislike  of  hymns  and 
of  Sunday. 

John   was   not   a   model    boy,   but    I   cannot 


1 82  BEING  A  BOY. 

exactly  define  in  what  his  wickedness  consisted. 
He  had  no  inclination  to  steal,  nor  much  to 
lie ;  and  he  despised  "  meanness "  and  stingi- 
ness, and  had  a  chivalrous  feeling  toward  little 
girls.  Probably  it  never  occurred  to  him  that 
there  was  any  virtue  in  not  stealing  and  lying, 
for  honesty  and  veracity  were  in  the  atmos- 
phere about  him.  He  hated  work,  and  he  "got 
mad "  easily ;  but  he  did  work,  and  he  was  al- 
ways ashamed  when  he  was  over  his  fit  of 
passion.  In  short,  you  could  n't  find  a  much 
better  wicked  boy  than  John. 

When  the  "  revival "  came,  therefore,  one 
summer,  John  was  in  a  quandary.  Sunday 
meeting  and  Sunday  school  he  did  n't  mind ; 
they  were  a  part  of  regular  life,  and  only  tem- 
porarily interrupted  a  boy's  pleasures.  But 
when  there  began  to  be  evening  meetings  at 
the  different  houses,  a  new  element  came  into 
affairs.  There  was  a  kind  of  solemnity  over  the 


EVENING  MEETINGS,  183 

community,  and  a  seriousness  in  all  faces.  At 
first  these  twilight  assemblies  offered  a  little 
relief  to  the  monotony  of  farm-life ;  and  John 
liked  to  meet  the  boys  and  girls,  and  to  watch 
the  older  people  coming  in,  dressed  in  their 
second  best.  I  think  John's  imagination  was 
worked  upon  by  the  sweet  and  mournful  hymns 
that  were  discordantly  sung  in  the  stiff  old  par- 
lors. There  was  a  suggestion  of  Sunday,  and 
sanctity  too,  in  the  odor  of  caraway-seed  that 
pervaded  the  room.  The  windows  were  wide 
open  also,  and  the  scent  of  June  roses  came  in 
with  all  the  languishing  sounds  of  a  summer 
night.  All  the  little  boys  had  a  scared  look, 
but  the  little  girls  were  never  so  pretty  and 
demure  as  in  this  their  susceptible  serious- 
ness. If  John  saw  a  boy  who  did  not  come  to 
the  evening  meeting,  but  was  wandering  off  with 
his  sling  down  the  meadow,  looking  for  frogs, 
maybe,  that  boy  seemed  to  him  a  monster  of 
wickedness. 


1 84  BEING  A   BOY. 

After  a  time,  as  the  meetings  continued,  John 
fell  also  under  the  general  impression  of  fright 
and  seriousness.  All  the  talk  was  of  "getting 
religion/'  and  he  heard  over  and  over  again  that 
the  probability  was  if  he  did  not  get  it  now  he 
never  would.  The  chance  did  not  come  often, 
and  if  this  offer  was  not  improved,  John  would 
be  given  over  to  hardness  of  heart.  His  obsti- 
nacy would  show  that  he  was  not  one  of  the 
elect.  John  fancied  that  he  could  feel  his  heart 
hardening,  and  he  began  to  look  with  a  wistful 
anxiety  into  the  faces  of  the  Christians  to  see 
what  were  the  visible  signs  of  being  one  of  the 
elect.  John  put  on  a  good  deal  of  a  manner 
that  he  "  did  n't  care,"  and  he  never  admitted 
his  disquiet  by  asking  any  questions  or  standing 
up  in  meeting  to  be  prayed  for.  But  he  did 
care.  He  heard  all  the  time  that  all  he  had  to 
do  was  to  repent  and  believe.  But  there  was 
nothing  that  he  doubted,  and  he  was  perfectly 


A  LONESOME  FRIEND. 


185 


willing  to  repent  if  he  could  think  of  anything 

to  repent  of. 

It  was  essential,  he  learned,  that  he  should 
have  a  "  conviction  of 
sin."  This  he  earnestly 
tried  to  have.  Other 
people,  no  better  than 
he,  had  it,  and  he  won- 
dered why  he  could  n't 
have  it.  Boys  and  girls 
whom  he  knew  were  "  un- 
der conviction,"  and  John 
began  to  feel  not  only 
panicky  but  lonesome. 
Cynthia  Rudd  had  been 
anxious  for  days  and 
days,  and  not  able  to 
sleep  at  night,  but  now 
she  had  given  herself  up  and  found  peace. 
There  was  a  kind  of  radiance  in  her  face  that 


1 86  BEING  A   BOY. 

struck  John  with  awe,  and  he  felt  that  now 
there  was  a  great  gulf  between  him  and  Cyn- 
thia. Everybody  was  going  away  from  him,  and 
his  heart  was  getting  harder  than  ever.  He 
could  n't  feel  wicked,  all  he  could  do.  And  there 
was  Ed  Bates,  his  intimate  friend,  though  older 
than  he,  a  "  whaling,"  noisy  kind  of  boy,  who 
was  under  conviction  and  sure  he  was  going  to 
be  lost.  How  John  envied  him.  And,  pretty 
soon,  Ed  "experienced  religion."  John  anxiously 
watched  the  change  in  Ed's  face  when  he  be- 
came one  of  the  elect.  And  a  change  there 
was.  And  John  wondered  about  another  thing. 
Ed  Bates  used  to  go  trout-fishing,  with  a  tre- 
mendously long  pole,  in  a  meadow-brook  near 
the  river ;  and  when  the  trout  did  n't  bite  right 
off  Ed  would  "get  mad,"  and  as  soon  as  one 
took  hold  he  would  give  an  awful  jerk,  sending 
the  fish  more  than  three  hundred  feet  into  the  air 
and  landing  it  in  the  bushes  the  other  side  of 


A  SINGING  SAINT.  1 87 

the  meadow,  crying  out,  "  Gul  darn  ye,  I  '11  learn 
ye."  And  John  wondered  if  Ed  would  take  the 
little  trout  out  any  more  gently  now. 

John  felt  more  and  more  lonesome  as  one 
after  another  of  his  playmates  came  out  and 
made  a  profession.  Cynthia  (she  too  was  older 
than  John)  sat  on  Sunday  in  the  singers'  seat ; 
her  voice,  which  was  going  to  be  a  contralto, 
had  a  wonderful  pathos  in  it  for  him,  and  he 
heard  it  with  a  heartache.  "  There  she  is," 
thought  John,  "  singing  away  like  an  angel  in 
heaven,  and  I  am  left  out."  During  all  his 
after  life  a  contralto  voice  was  to  John  one  of 
his  most  bitter  and  heart-wringing  pleasures.  It 
suggested  the  immaculate  scornful,  the  melan- 
choly unattainable. 

If  ever  a  boy  honestly  tried  to  work  himself 
into  a  conviction  of  sin,  John  tried.  And  what 
made  him  miserable  was  that  he  could  n't  feel 
miserable  when  everybody  else  was  miserable. 


1 88  BEING  A   BOY. 

He  even  began  to  pretend  to  be  so.  He  put 
on  a  serious  and  anxious  look  like  the  others. 
He  pretended  he  did  n't  care  for  play ;  he 
refrained  from  chasing  chipmunks  and  snaring 
suckers ;  the  songs  of  birds  and  the  bright 
vivacity  of  the  summer  time  that  used  to  make 
him  turn  handsprings  smote  him  as  a  discor- 
dant levity.  He  was  not  a  hypocrite  at  all,  and 
he  was  getting  to  be  alarmed  that  he  was  not 
alarmed  at  himself.  Every  day  and  night  he 
heard  that  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  would  probably 
soon  quit  striving  with  him,  and  leave  him  out. 
The  phrase  was  that  he  would  "grieve  away  the 
Holy  Spirit."  John  wondered  if  he  was  not  doing 
it.  He  did  everything  to  put  himself  in  the  way 
of  conviction,  was  constant  at  the  evening  meet- 
ings, wore  a  grave  face,  refrained  from  play,  and 
tried  to  feel  anxious.  At  length  he  concluded 
that  he  must  do  something. 

One  night  as  he  walked  home  from  a  solemn 


BY  THE  ROADSIDE.  189 

meeting,  at  which  several  of  his  little  playmates 
had  "come  forward,"  he  felt  that  he  could  force 
the  crisis.  He  was  alone  on  the  sandy  road ; 
it  was  an  enchanting  summer  night ;  the  stars 
danced  overhead,  and  by  his  side  the  broad  and 
shallow  river  ran  over  its  stony  bed  with  a  loud 
but  soothing  murmur  that  filled  all  the  air  with 
entreaty.  John  did  not  then  know  that  it  sang, 
"  But  I  go  on  forever,"  yet  there  was  in  it  for 
him  something  of  the  solemn  flow  of  the  eternal 
world.  When  he  came  in  sight  of  the  house,  he 
knelt  down  in  the  dust  by  a  pile  of  rails  and 
prayed.  He  prayed  that  he  might  feel  bad, 
and  be  distressed  about  himself.  As  he  prayed 
he  heard  distinctly,  and  yet  not  as  a  disturbance, 
the  multitudinous  croaking  of  the  frogs  by  the 
meadow-spring.  It  was  not  discordant  with  his 
thoughts,  it  had  in  it  a  melancholy  pathos,  as 
if  it  were  a  kind  of  call  to  the  unconverted. 
What  is  there  in  this  sound  that  suggests  the 


190 


BEING  A   BOY. 


tenderness  of  spring,  the  despair  of  a  summer 
night,  the  desolateness  of  young  love  ?  Years 
after  it  happened  to  John  to  be  at  twilight  at  a 
railway  -  station  on  the  edge  of  the  Ravenna 
marshes.  A  little  way  over  the  purple  plain  he 
saw  the  darkening  towers 
and  heard  "the  sweet  bells 
of  Imola."  The  Holy  Pon- 


tiff Pius  IX.  was  born  at  Imola,  and  passed  his 
boyhood  in  that  serene  and  moist  region.  As 
the  train  waited,  John  heard  from  miles  of 
marshes  round  about  the  evening  song  of  mil- 
lions of  frogs,  louder  and  more  melancholy  and 
entreating  than  the  vesper  call  of  the  bells. 
And  instantly  his  mind  went  back  —  for  the 


THE  PLAINTIVE  APPEAL.  191 

association  of  sound  is  as  subtle  as  that  of  odor 
—  to  the  prayer,  years  ago,  by  the  roadside  and 
the  plaintive  appeal  of  the  unheeded  frogs,  and 
he  wondered  if  the  little  Pope  had  not  heard 
the  like  importunity,  and  perhaps,  when  he 
thought  of  himself  as  a  little  Pope,  associated 
his  conversion  with  this  plaintive  sound. 

John  prayed,  but  without  feeling  any  worse, 
and  then  went  desperately  into  the  house,  and 
told  the  family  that  he  was  in  an  anxious  state 
of  mind.  This  was  joyful  news  to  the  sweet 
and  pious  household,  and  the  little  boy  was 
urged  to  feel  that  he  was  a  sinner,  to  repent, 
and  to  become  that  night  a  Christian ;  he  was 
prayed  over,  and  told  to  read  the  Bible,  and 
put  to  bed  with  the  injunction  to  repeat  all  the 
texts  of  Scripture  and  hymns  he  could  think  of 
John  did  this,  and  said  over  and  over  the  few 
texts  he  was  master  of,  and  tossed  about  in  a  real 
discontent  now,  for  he  had  a  dim  notion  that  he 
was  playing  the  hypocrite  a  little.  But  he  was 


1 92  BEING  A  BOY. 

sincere  enough  in  wanting  to  feel,  as  the  other 
boys  and  girls  felt,  that  he  was  a  wicked  sinner. 
He  tried  to  think  of  his  evil  deeds  ;  and  one 
occurred  to  him,  indeed,  it  often  came  to  his 
mind.  It  was  a  lie ;  a  deliberate,  awful  lie,  that 
never  injured  anybody  but  himself.  John  knew 
he  was  not  wicked  enough  to  tell  a  lie  to  injure 
anybody  else. 

This  was  the  lie.  One  afternoon  at  school, 
just  before  John's  class  was  to  recite  in  geogra- 
phy, his  pretty  cousin,  a  young  lady  he  held  in 
great  love  and  respect,  came  in  to  visit  the 
school.  John  was  a  favorite  with  her,  and  she 
had  come  to  hear  him  recite.  As  it  happened, 
John  felt  shaky  in  the  geographical  lesson  of 
that  day,  and  he  feared  to  be  humiliated  in 
the  presence  of  his  cousin  ;  he  felt  embarrassed 
to  that  degree  that  he  could  n't  have  "  bounded  " 
Massachusetts.  So  he  stood  up  and  raised  his 
hand,  and  said  to  the  schoolma'am,  "  Please, 
ma'am,  I  Ve  got  the  stomach-ache ;  may  I  go 


AN  A  WFUL  SIN.  1 93 

home  ?  "  And  John's  character  for  truthfulness 
was  so  high  (and  even  this  was  ever  a  reproach 
to  him),  that  his  word  was  instantly  believed, 
and  he  was  dismissed  without  any  medical 
examination.  For  a  moment  John  was  delighted 
to  get  out  of  school  so  early ;  but  soon  his  guilt 
took  all  the  light  out  of  the  summer  sky  and 
the  pleasantness  out  of  nature.  He  had  to  walk 
slowly,  without  a  single  hop  or  jump,  as  became 
a  diseased  boy.  The  sight  of  a  woodchuck  at  a 
distance  from  his  well-known  hole  tempted  John, 
but  he  restrained  himself,  lest  somebody  should 
see  him,  and  know  that  chasing  a  woodchuck 
was  inconsistent  with  the  stomach-ache.  He 
was  acting  a  miserable  part,  but  it  had  to  be 
gone  through  with.  He  went  home  and  told 
his  mother  the  reason  he  had  left  school,  but  he 
added  that  he  felt  "some"  better  now.  The 
"  some  "  did  n't  save  him.  Genuine  sympathy 
was  lavished  on  him.  He  had  to  swallow  a 
stiff  dose  of  nasty  "  picra,"  —  the  horror  of  all 


194  BEING  A  BOY. 

childhood,  and  he  was  put  in  bed  immediately. 
The  world  never  looked  so  pleasant  to  John, 
but  to  bed  he  was  forced  to  go.  He  was  excused 
from  all  chores ;  he  was  not  even  to  go  after  the 
cows.  John  said  he  thought  he  ought  to  go 
after  the  cows,  —  much  as  he  hated  the  business 
usually,  he  would  now  willingly  have  wandered 
over  the  world  after  cows,  —  and  for  this  heroic 
offer,  in  the  condition  he  was,  he  got  credit  for 
a  desire  to  do  his  duty ;  and  this  unjust  confi- 
dence in  him  added  to  his  torture.  And  he  had 
intended  to  set  his  hooks  that  night  for  eels.  His 
cousin  came  home,  and  sat  by  his  bedside  and 
condoled  with  him  ;  his  schoolma'am  had  sent 
word  how  sorry  she  was  for  him,  John  was  such 
a  good  boy.  All  this  was  dreadful.  He  groaned 
in  agony.  Besides,  he  was  not  to  have  any  sup- 
per ;  it  would  be  very  dangerous  to  eat  a  morsel. 
The  prospect  was  appalling.  Never  was  there 
such  a  long  twilight ;  never  before  did  he  hear 
so  many  sounds  out  doors  that  he  wanted  to 


THE  PUNISHMENT  OF  LYING.  195 

investigate.  Being  ill  without  any  illness  was  a 
horrible  condition.  And  he  began  to  have  real 
stomach-ache  now ;  and  it  ached  because  it  was 
empty.  John  was  hungry  enough  to  have  eaten 
the  New  England  Primer.  But  by  and  by  sleep 
came,  and  John  forgot  his  woes  in  dreaming  that 
he  knew  where  Madagascar  was  just  as  easy  as 
anything. 

It  was  this  lie  that  came  back  to  John  the 
night  he  was  trying  to  be  affected  by  the  revival. 
And  he  was  very  much  ashamed  of  it,  and  be- 
lieved he  would  never  tell  another.  But  then 
he  fell  thinking  whether  with  the  "picra,"  and 
the  going  to  bed  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  loss 
of  his  supper,  he  had  not  been  sufficiently  paid 
for  it.  And  in  this  unhopeful  frame  of  mind  he 
dropped  off  in  sleep. 

And  the  truth  must  be  told,  that  in  the  morn- 
ing John  was  no  nearer  to  realizing  the  terrors 
he  desired  to  feel.  But  he  was  a  conscientious 
boy,  and  would  do  nothing  to  interfere  with  the 


196  BEING  A   BOY. 

influences  of  the  season.  He  not  only  put  him- 
self away  from  them  all,  but  he  refrained  from 
doing  almost  everything  that  he  wanted  to  do. 
There  came  at  that  time  a  newspaper,  a  secular 
newspaper,  which  had  in  it  a  long  account  of 
the  Long  Island  races,  in  which  the  famous  horse 
"Lexington"  was  a  runner.  John  was  fond  of 
horses,  he  knew  about  Lexington,  and  he  had 
looked  forward  to  the  result  of  this  race  with  keen 
interest.  But  to  read  the  account  of  it  now  he  felt 
might  destroy  his  seriousness  of  mind,  and  —  in 
all  reverence  and  simplicity  he  felt  it — be  a  means 
of  "  grieving  away  the  Holy  Spirit."  He  therefore 
hid  away  the  paper  in  a  table-drawer,  intending 
to  read  it  when  the  revival  should  be  over. 
Weeks  after,  when  he  looked  for  the  newspaper, 
it  was  not  to  be  found,  and  John  never  knew 
what  "  time  "  Lexington  made  nor  anything  about 
the  race.  This  was  to  him  a  serious  loss,  but 
by  no  means  so  deep  as  another  feeling  that 
remained  with  him  ;  for  when  his  little  world 


RELIGION  NOT  A   "SCHEME." 


197 


returned  to  its  ordinary  course,  and  long  after, 
John  had  an  uneasy  apprehension  of  his  own 
separateness  from  other  people,  in  his  insensi- 
bility to  the  revival.  Perhaps  the  experience  was 
a  damage  to  him  ;  and  it  is  a  pity  that  there 
was  no  one  to  explain  that  religion  for  a  little 
fellow  like  him  is  not  a  "  scheme." 


XVII. 

WAR. 

VERY  boy  who  is 
good  for  anything 
is   a  natural   sav- 
age.     The   scien- 
tists who  want  to 
study  the  prim- 
itive   m  an, 

and  have  so 
much  difficulty  in  finding 
one  anywhere  in  this  so- 
phisticated age,  could  n't 
do  better  than  to  devote  their  attention  to  the 
common  country-boy.  He  has  the  primal,  vig- 


THE  PRIMITIVE  MAN.  199 

orous  instincts  and  impulses  of  the  African  sav- 
age, without  any  of  the  vices  inherited  from  a 
civilization  long  ago  decayed  or  developed  in  an 
unrestrained  barbaric  society.  You  want  to  catch 
your  boy  young,  and  study  him  before  he  has 
either  virtues  or  vices,  in  order  to  understand  the 
primitive  man. 

Every  New  England  boy  desires  (or  did 
desire  a  generation  ago,  before  children  were 
born  sophisticated,  with  a  large  library,  and 
with  the  word  "  culture  "  written  on  their  brows) 
to  live  by  hunting,  fishing,  and  war.  The  mili- 
tary instinct,  which  is  the  special  mark  of  bar- 
barism, is  strong  in  him.  It  arises  not  alone 
from  his  love  of  fighting,  for  the  boy  is  naturally 
as  cowardly  as  the  savage,  but  from  his  fondness 
for  display,  —  the  same  that  a  corporal  or  a  gen- 
eral feels  in  decking  himself  in  tinsel  and  tawdry 
colors  and  strutting  about  in  view  of  the  female 
sex.  Half  the  pleasure  in  going  out  to  murder 


2OO  BEING  A   BOY. 

another  man  with  a  gun  would  be  wanting  if 
one  did  not  wear  feathers  and  gold-lace  and 
stripes  on  his  pantaloons.  The  law  also  takes 
this  view  of  it,  and  will  not  permit  men  to  shoot 
each  other  in  plain  clothes.  And  the  world  also 
makes  some  curious  distinctions  in  the  art  of 
killing.  To  kill  people  with  arrows  is  barba- 
rous ;  to  kill  them  with  smooth-bores  and  flint- 
lock muskets  is  semi-civilized ;  to  kill  them 
with  breech-loading  rifles  is  civilized.  That  na- 
tion is  the  most  civilized  which  has  the  appli- 
ances to  kill  the  most  of  another  nation  in  the 
shortest  time.  This  is  the  result  of  six  thou- 
sand years  of  constant  civilization.  By  and  by, 
when  the  nations  cease  to  be  boys,  perhaps  they 
will  not  want  to  kill  each  other  at  all.  Some 
people  think  the  world  is  very  old  ;  but  here 
is  an  evidence  that  it  is  very  young,  and,  in  fact, 
has  scarcely  yet  begun  to  be  a  world.  When  the 
volcanoes  have  done  spouting,  and  the  earth- 


THE    WORLD    YET  YOUNG.  2OI 

quakes  are  quaked  out,  and  you  can  tell  what 
land  is  going  to  be  solid  and  keep  its  level 
twenty-four  hours,  and  the  swamps  are  filled 
up,  and  the  deltas  of  the  great  rivers,  like  the 
Mississippi  and  the  Nile,  become  terra  firma, 
and  men  stop  killing  their  fellows  in  order  to 
get  their  land  and  other  property,  then  perhaps 
there  will  be  a  world  that  an  angel  would  n't 
weep  over.  Now  one  half  the  world  are  em- 
ployed in  getting  ready  to  kill  the  other  half, 
some  of  them  by  marching  about  in  uniform,  and 
the  others  by  hard  work  to  earn  money  to  pay 
taxes  to  buy  uniforms  and  guns. 

John  was  not  naturally  very  cruel,  and  it  was 
probably  the  love  of  display  quite  as  much  as  of 
fighting  that  led  him  into  a  military  life  ;  for  he 
in  common  with  all  his  comrades  had  other 
traits  of  the  savage.  One  of  them  was  the 
same  passion  for  ornament  that  induces  the 
African  to  wear  anklets  and  bracelets  of  hide 


202 


BEING  A   BOY. 


and  of 
metal,  and 
to  deco- 
rate him- 
self with 
tufts  of 
hair,  and 
to  tattoo 
his  body. 
In  John's 
day  there 

was  a  rage  at  school  among 
the  boys  for  wearing  brace- 
lets woven  of  the  hair  of  the 
little  girls.  Some  of  them 
were  wonderful  specimens  of 
braiding  and  twist.  These 
were  not  captured  in  war, 
but  were  sentimental  tokens 
of  friendship  given  by  the 


SAVAGE  ORNAMENTS.  2O3 

young  maidens  themselves.  John's  own  hair 
was  kept  so  short  (as  became  a  warrior)  that  you 
could  n't  have  made  a  bracelet  out  of  it,  or  any- 
thing except  a  paint-brush ;  but  the  little  girls 
were  not  under  military  law,  and  they  willingly 
sacrificed  their  tresses  to  decorate  the  soldiers 
they  esteemed.  As  the  Indian  is  honored  in  pro- 
portion to  the  scalps  he  can  display,  the  boy  at 
John's  school  was  held  in  highest  respect  who 
could  show  the  most  hair  trophies  on  his  wrist. 
John  himself  had  a  variety  that  would  have 
pleased  a  Mohawk,  fine  and  coarse  and  of  all 
colors.  There  were  the  flaxen,  the  faded  straw, 
the  glossy  black,  the  lustrous  brown,  the  dirty 
yellow,  the  undecided  auburn,  and  the  fiery  red. 
Perhaps  his  pulse  beat  more  quickly  under  the 
red  hair  of  Cynthia  Rudd  than  on  account  of 
all  the  other  wristlets  put  together  ;  it  was  a 
sort  of  gold-tried-in-the-fire-color  to  John,  and 
burned  there  with  a  steady  flame.  Now  that 


204  BEING  A  BOY. 

Cynthia  had  become  a  Christian,  this  band  of  hair 
seemed  a  more  sacred  if  less  glowing  possession 
(for  all  detached  hair  will  fade  in  time),  and  if  he 
had  known  anything  about  saints  he  would  have 
imagined  that  it  was  a  part  of  the  aureole  that 
always  goes  with  a  saint.  But  I  am  bound  to 
say  that  while  John  had  a  tender  feeling  for  this 
red  string,  his  sentiment  was  not  that  of  the 
man  who  becomes  entangled  in  the  meshes  of  a 
woman's  hair  ;  and  he  valued  rather  the  number 
than  the  quality  of  these  elastic  wristlets. 

John  burned  with  as  real  a  military  ardor  as 
ever  inflamed  the  breast  of  any  slaughterer  of 
his  fellows.  He  liked  to  read  of  war,  of  en- 
counters with  the  Indians,  of  any  kind  of  whole- 
sale killing  in  glittering  uniform,  to  the  noise 
of  the  terribly  exciting  fife  and  drum,  which 
maddened  the  combatants  and  drowned  the  cries 
of  the  wounded.  In  his  future  he  saw  himself 
a  soldier  with  plume  and  sword  and  snug-fitting, 


A  SOLDIER  IN  GLORY.  205 

decorated  clothes,  —  very  different  from  his  some- 
what roomy  trousers  and  country-cut  rounda- 
bout, made  by  Aunt  Ellis,  the  village  tailoress, 
who  cut  out  clothes,  not  according  to  the  shape 
of  the  boy,  but  to  what  he  was  expected  to  grow 
to,  —  going  where  glory  awaited  him.  In  his 
observation  of  pictures,  it  was  the  common  sol- 
dier who  was  always  falling  and  dying,  while 
the  officer  stood  unharmed  in  the  storm  of  bul- 
lets and  waved  his  sword  in  a  heroic  attitude. 
John  determined  to  be  an  officer. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  he  was  an  ardent 
member  of  the  military  company  of  his  vil- 
lage. He  had  risen  from  the  grade  of  corpo- 
ral to  that  of  first  lieutenant ;  the  captain  was 
a  boy  whose  father  was  captain  of  the  grown 
militia  company,  and  consequently  had  inher- 
ited military  aptness  and  knowledge.  The  old 
captain  was  a  flaming  son  of  Mars,  whose  nose 
militia  war,  general  training,  and  New  England 


206  BEING  A  BOY. 

rum  had  painted  with  the  color  of  glory  and 
disaster.  He  was  one  of  the  gallant  old  soldiers 
of  the  peaceful  days  of  our  country,  splendid  in 
uniform,  a  martinet  in  drill,  terrible  in  oaths,  a 
glorious  object  when  he  marched  at  the  head 
of  his  company  of  flintlock  muskets,  with  the 
American  banner  full  high  advanced,  and  the 
clamorous  drum  defying  the  world.  In  this  he 
fulfilled  his  duties  of  citizen,  faithfully  teaching 
his  uniformed  companions  how  to  march  by  the 
left  leg,  and  to  get  reeling  drunk  by  sundown ; 
otherwise  he  did  n't  amount  to  much  in  the  com- 
munity ;  his  house  was  unpainted,  his  fences 
were  tumbled  down,  his  farm  was  a  waste,  his 
wife  wore  an  old  gown  to  meeting,  to  which  the 
captain  never  went ;  but  he  was  a  good  trout- 
fisher,  and  there  was  no  man  in  town  who  spent 
more  time  at  the  country  store  and  made  more 
shrewd  observations  upon  the  affairs  of  his  neigh- 
bors. Although  he  had  never  been  in  an  asy- 


THE  MILITARY  COMPANY.  2O/ 

him  any  more  than  he  had  been  in  war,  he 
was  almost  as  perfect  a  drunkard  as  he  was 
soldier.  He  hated  the  British,  whom  he  had 
never  seen,  as  much  as  he  loved  rum,  from  which 
he  was  never  separated. 

The  company  which  his  son  commanded,  wear- 
ing his  father's  belt  and  sword,  was  about  as 
effective  as  the  old  company,  and  more  orderly. 
It  contained  from  thirty  to  fifty  boys,  according 
to  the  pressure  of  "  chores  "  at  home,  and  it  had 
its  great  days  of  parade  and  its  autumn  manoeu- 
vres, like  the  general  training.  It  was  an  artil- 
lery company,  which  gave  every  boy  a  chance 
to  wear  a  sword,  and  it  possessed  a  small 
mounted  cannon,  which  was  dragged  about  and 
limbered  and  unlimbered  and  fired,  to  the  immi- 
nent danger  of  everybody,  especially  of  the  com- 
pany. In  point  of  marching,  with  all  the  legs 
going  together,  and  twisting  itself  up  and  un- 
twisting, breaking  into  single-file  (for  Indian 


208 


BEING  A   BOY. 


fighting),  and  forming  platoons, 
turning  a  sharp  corner,  and  get- 
ting out  of  the  way  of  a  wagon, 
circling  the  town  pump,  fright- 
ening horses,  stopping  short   in 
front  of  the  tavern,  with  ranks 
dressed  and  eyes  right  and  left, 
it  was  the  equal  of  any  mil- 
itary organization    I    ever 
saw.     It  could  train  better 
than  the  big  company,  and 
I  think  it   did  more  good 
in  keeping  alive  the  spirit 
of  patriotism  and  desire  to 
fight.     Its    discipline    was 
strict.      If  a   boy   left   the 


DISCIPLINE  AND   UNIFORM.  2OQ 

ranks  to  jab  a  spectator,  or  make  faces  at  a 
window,  or  "go  for"  a  striped  snake,  he  was 
"  hollered  "  at  no  end. 

It  was  altogether  a  very  serious  business  ; 
there  was  no  levity  about  the  hot  and  hard 
marching,  and  as  boys  have  no  humor,  nothing 
ludicrous  occurred.  John  was  very  proud  of 
his  office,  and  of  his  ability  to  keep  the  rear 
ranks  closed  up  and  ready  to  execute  any  ma- 
noeuvre when  the  captain  "hollered,"  which  he 
did  continually.  He  carried  a  real  sword,  which 
his  grandfather  had  worn  in  many  a  militia  cam- 
paign on  the  village  green,  the  rust  upon  which 
John  fancied  was  Indian  blood  ;  he  had  various 
red  and  yellow  insignia  of  military  rank  sewed 
upon  different  parts  of  his  clothes,  and  though 
his  cocked  hat  was  of  pasteboard,  it  was  deco- 
rated with  gilding  and  bright  rosettes,  and  floated 
a  red  feather  that  made  his  heart  beat  with  mar- 
tial fury  whenever  he  looked  at  it.  The  effect 


2IO  BEING  A  BOY. 

of  this  uniform  upon  the  girls  was  not  a  matter 
of  conjecture.  I  think  they  really  cared  nothing 
about  it,  but  they  pretended  to  think  it  fine,  and 
they  fed  the  poor  boys'  vanity,  —  the  weakness 
by  which  women  govern  the  world. 

The  exalted  happiness  of  John  in  this  military 
service  I  dare  say  was  never  equalled  in  any 
subsequent  occupation.  The  display  of  the  com- 
pany in  the  village  filled  him  with  the  loftiest 
heroism.  There  was  nothing  wanting  but  an 
enemy  to  fight,  but  this  could  only  be  had  by 
half  the  company  staining  themselves  with  elder- 
berry juice  and  going  into  the  woods  as  Indians, 
to  fight  the  artillery  from  behind  trees  with  bows 
and  arrows,  or  to  ambush  it  and  tomahawk  the 
gunners.  This,  however,  was  made  to  seem  very 
like  real  war.  Traditions  of  Indian  cruelty  were 
still  fresh  in  Western  Massachusetts.  Behind 
John's  house  in  the  orchard  were  some  old  slate 
tombstones,  sunken  and  leaning,  which  recorded 


KILLED  BY  INDIANS.  211 

the  names  of  Captain  Moses  Rice  and  Phineas 
Arms,  who  had  been  killed  by  Indians  in  the 
last  century  while  at  work  in  the  meadow  by 
the  river,  and  who  slept  there  in  the  hope  of  a 
glorious  resurrection.  Phineas  Arms  —  martial 
name  —  was  long  since  dust,  and  even  the  mortal 
part  of  the -great  Captain  Moses  Rice  had  been 
absorbed  in  the  soil  and  passed  perhaps  with 
the  sap  up  into  the  old  but  still  blooming  apple- 
trees.  It  was  a  quiet  place  where  they  lay,  but 
they  might  have  heard  —  if  hear  they  could  — 
the  loud,  continuous  roar  of  the  Deerfield,  and 
the  stirring  of  the  long  grass  on  that  sunny 
slope.  There  was  a  tradition  that  years  ago  an 
Indian,  probably  the  last  of  his  race,  had  been 
seen  moving  along  the  crest  of  the  mountain, 
and  gazing  down  into  the  lovely  valley  which 
had  been  the  favorite  home  of  his  tribe,  upon 
the  fields  where  he  grew  his  corn  and  the  spark- 
ling stream  whence  he  drew  his  fish.  John  used 


212  BEING  A   BOY. 

to  fancy  at  times,  as  he  sat  there,  that  he  could 
see  that  red  spectre  gliding  among  the  trees  on 
the  hill ;  and  if  the  tombstone  suggested  to  him 
the  trump  of  judgment,  he  could  not  separate 
it  from  the  war-whoop  that  had  been  the  last 
sound  in  the  ear  of  Phineas  Arms.  The  Indian 
always  preceded  murder  by  the  war-whoop ;  and 
this  was  an  advantage  that  the  artillery  had  in 
the  fight  with  the  elderberry  Indians.  It  was 
warned  in  time.  If  there  was  no  war-whoop, 
the  killing  did  n't  count ;  the  artillery  man  got 
up  and  killed  the  Indian.  The  Indian  usually 
had  the  worst  of  it ;  he  not  only  got  killed  by 
the  regulars,  but  he  got  whipped  by  the  home- 
guard  at  night  for  staining  himself  and  his  clothes 
with  the  elderberry. 

But  once  a  year  the  company  had  a  superla- 
tive parade.  This  was  when  the  military  com- 
pany from  the  north  part  of  the  town  joined  the 
villagers  in  a  general  muster.  This  was  an  in- 


CLANNISHNESS  OF  BOYS.  213 

fantry  company,  and  not  to  be  compared  with 
that  of  the  village  in  point  of  evolutions.  There 
was  a  great  and  natural  hatred  between  the 
north  town  boys  and  the  centre.  I  don't  know 
why,  but  no  contiguous  African  tribes  could  be 
more  hostile.  It  was  all  right  for  one  of  either 
section  to  "  lick "  the  other  if  he  could,  or  for 
half  a  dozen  to  "lick"  one  of  the  enemy  if  they 
caught  him  alone.  The  notion  of  honor,  as  of 
mercy,  comes  into  the  boy  only  when  he  is 
pretty  well  grown ;  to  some  neither  ever  comes. 
And  yet  there  was  an  artificial  military  courtesy 
(something  like  that  existing  in  the  feudal  age, 
no  doubt)  which  put  the  meeting  of  these  two 
rival  and  mutually  detested  companies  on  a  high 
plane  of  behavior.  It  was  beautiful  to  see  the 
seriousness  of  this  lofty  and  studied  condescen- 
sion on  both  sides.  For  the  time  everything 
was  under  martial  law.  The  village  company 
being  the  senior,  its  captain  commanded  the 


214  BEING  A  BOY. 

united  battalion  in  the  march,  and  this  put  John 
temporarily  into  the  position  of  captain,  with 
the  right  to  march  at  the  head  and  "  holler "  ; 
a  responsibility  which  realized  all  his  hopes  of 
glory.  I  suppose  there  has  yet  been  discovered 
by  man  no  gratification  like  that  of  marching 
at  the  head  of  a  column  in  uniform  on  parade, 
—  unless  perhaps  it  is  marching  at  their  head 
when  they  are  leaving  a  field  of  battle.  John 
experienced  all  the  thrill  of  this  conspicuous  au- 
thority, and  I  dare  say  that  nothing  in  his  later 
life  has  so  exalted  him  in  his  own  esteem ;  cer- 
tainly nothing  has  since  happened  that  was  so 
important  as  the  events  of  that  parade  day 
seemed.  He  satiated  himself  with  all  the  de- 
lights of  war. 


XVIII. 


\T   is  impossible  to 
say  at  what  age 
a  New  England 
country-boy  be- 
comes conscious 
that   his  trous- 
ers-legs  are    too   short, 
and  is  anxious  about  the  part 

^J^_    of  his   hair   and   the   fit  of 
^  —.^ 

his  woman-made  roundabout. 

These  harrowing  thoughts  come  to  him  later 
than  to  the  city  lad.  At  least,  a  generation  ago 
he  served  a  long  apprenticeship  with  nature 
only  for  a  master,  absolutely  unconscious  of  the 
artificialities  of  life. 


2l6  BEING  A  BOY. 

But  I  do  not  think  his  early  education  was 
neglected.  And  yet  it  is  easy  to  underestimate 
the  influences  that  unconsciously  to  him  were 
expanding  his  mind  and  nursing  in  him  heroic 
purposes.  There  was  the  lovely  but  narrow  val- 
ley, with  its  rapid  mountain  stream  ;  there  were 
the  great  hills  which  he  climbed  only  to  see 
other  hills  stretching  away  to  a  broken  and 
tempting  horizon ;  there  were  the  rocky  pas- 
tures, and  the  wide  sweeps  of  forest  through 
which  the  winter  tempests  howled,  upon  which 
hung  the  haze  of  summer  heat,  over  which  the 
great  shadows  of  summer  clouds  travelled  ;  there 
were  the  clouds  themselves,  shouldering  up 
above  the  peaks,  hurrying  across  the  narrow 
sky,  —  the  clouds  out  of  which  the  wind  came, 
and  the  lightning  and  the  sudden  dashes  of 
rain  ;  and  there  were  days  when  the  sky  was 
ineffably  blue  and  distant,  a  fathomless  vault  of 
heaven  where  the  hen-hawk  and  the  eagle  poised 


THE  BOY'S  IDEAL    WORLD.  2 1/ 

on  outstretched  wings  and  watched  for  their 
prey.  Can  you  say  how  these  things  fed  the 
imagination  of  the  boy,  who  had  few  books  and 
no  contact  with  the  great  world  ?  Do  you  think 
any  city  lad  could  have  written  "  Thanatopsis  " 
at  eighteen  ? 

If  you  had  seen  John,  in  his  short  and  roomy 
trousers  and  ill-used  straw  hat,  picking  his  bare- 
footed way  over  the  rocks  along  the  river-bank 
of  a  cool  morning  to  see  if  an  eel  had  "  got  on," 
you  would  not  have  fancied  that  he  lived  in  an 
ideal  world.  Nor  did  he  consciously.  So  far 
as  he  knew,  he  had  no  more  sentiment  than  a 
jack-knife.  Although  he  loved  Cynthia  Rudd 
devotedly,  and  blushed  scarlet  one  day  when 
his  cousin  found  a  lock  of  Cynthia's  flaming  hair 
in  the  box  where  John  kept  his  fish-hooks,  spruce 
gum,  flag-root,  tickets  of  standing  at  the  head, 
gimlet,  billets-doux  in  blue  ink,  a  vile  liquid  in 
a  bottle  to  make  fish  bite,  and  other  precious 


218  BEING  A   BOY. 

possessions,  yet  Cynthia's  society  had  no  attrac- 
tions for  him  comparable  to  a  day's  trout-fishing. 
She  was,  after  all,  only  a  single  and  a  very 
undefined  item  in  his  general  ideal  world,  and 
there  was  no  harm  in  letting  his  imagination 
play  about  her  illumined  head.  Since  Cynthia 
had  "got  religion"  and  John  had  got  nothing, 
his  love  was  tempered  with  a  little  awe  and  a 
feeling  of  distance.  He  was  not  fickle,  and  yet 
I  cannot  say  that  he  was  not  ready  to  construct 
a  new  romance,  in  which  Cynthia  should  be 
eliminated.  Nothing  was  easier.  Perhaps  it 
was  a  luxurious  travelling  carriage,  drawn  by 
two  splendid  horses  in  plated  harness,  driven 
along  the  sandy  road.  There  were  a  gentleman 
and  a  young  lad  on  the  front  seat,  and  on  the 
back  seat  a  handsome  pale  lady  with  a  little 
girl  beside  her.  Behind,  on  the  rack  with  the 
trunk,  was  a  colored  boy,  an  imp  out  of  a  story- 
book. John  was  told  that  the  black  boy  was  a 


SOUTHERN  ROMANCE.  2IQ 

slave,  and  that  the  carriage  was  from  Baltimore. 
Here  was  a  chance  for  a  romance.  Slavery, 
beauty,  wealth,  haughtiness,  especially  on  the 
part  of  the  slender  boy  on  the  front  seat,  — 
here  was  an  opening  into  a  vast  realm.  The 
high-stepping  horses  and  the  shining  harness 
were  enough  to  excite  John's  admiration,  but 
these  were  nothing  to  the  little  girl.  His  eyes 
had  never  before  fallen  upon  that  kind  of  girl ; 
he  had  hardly  imagined  that  such  a  lovely  crea- 
ture could  exist.  Was  it  the  soft  and  dainty 
toilet,  was  it  the  brown  curls,  or  the  large  laugh- 
ing eyes,  or  the  delicate,  finely  cut  features,  or 
the  charming  little  figure  of  this  fairy-like  per- 
son ?  Was  this  expression  on  her  mobile  face 
merely  that  of  amusement  at  seeing  a  country 
boy  ?  Then  John  hated  her.  On  the  contrary, 
did  she  see  in  him  what  John  felt  himself  to  be  ? 
Then  he  would  go  the  world  over  to  serve  her. 
In  a  moment  he  was  self-conscious.  His  trousers 


220  BEING  A  BOY. 

seemed  to  creep  higher  up  his  legs,  and  he  could 
feel  his  very  ankles  blush.  He  hoped  that  she 
had  not  seen  the  other  side  of  him,  for,  in  fact, 
the  patches  were  not  of  the  exact  shade  of  the 
rest  of  the  cloth.  The  vision  flashed  by  him 
in  a  moment,  but  it  left  him  with  a  resentful 
feeling.  Perhaps  that  proud  little  girl  would  be 
sorry  some  day,  when  he  had  become  a  general, 
or  written  a  book,  or  kept  a  store,  to  see  him  go 
away  and  marry  another.  He  almost  made  up 
his  cruel  mind  on  the  instant  that  he  would  never 
marry  her,  however  bad  she  might  feel.  And 
yet  he  could  n't  get  her  out  of  his  mind  for  days 
and  days,  and  when  her  image  was  present,  even 
Cynthia  in  the  singers'  seat  on  Sunday  looked  a 
little  cheap  and  common.  Poor  Cynthia.  Long 
before  John  became  a  general  or  had  his  revenge 
on  the  Baltimore  girl,  she  married  a  farmer  and 
was  the  mother  of  children,  red-headed  ;  and  when 
John  saw  her  years  after  she  looked  tired  and 


FISHING  AND  DREAMING.  221 

discouraged,  as  one  who  has  carried  into  woman- 
hood none  of  the  romance  of  her  youth. 

Fishing  and  dreaming,  I  think,  were  the  best 
amusements  John  had.  The  middle  pier  of  the 
long  covered  bridge  over  the  river  stood  upon 
a  great  rock,  and  this  rock  (which  was  known 
as  the  swimming-rock,  whence  the  boys  on 
summer  evenings  dove  into  the  deep  pool  by 
its  side)  was  a  favorite  spot  with  John  when  he 
could  get  an  hour  or  two  from  the  everlasting 
"chores."  Making  his  way  out  to  it  over  the 
rocks  at  low  water  with  his  fish-pole,  there  he 
was  content  to  sit  and  observe  the  world  ;  and 
there  he  saw  a  great  deal  of  life.  He  always 
expected  to  catch  the  legendary  trout  which 
weighed  two  pounds  and  was  believed  to  inhabit 
that  pool.  He  always  did  catch  horned  dace  and 
shiners,  which  he  despised,  and  sometimes  he 
snared  a  monstrous  sucker  a  foot  and  a  half  long. 
But  in  the  summer  the  sucker  is  a  flabby  fish, 


222  BEING  A   BOY. 

and  John  was  not  thanked  for  bringing  him 
home.  He  liked,  however,  to  lie  with  his  face 
close  to  the  water  and  watch  the  long  fishes 
panting  in  the  clear  depths,  and  occasionally  he 
would  drop  a  pebble  near  one  to  see  how  grace- 
fully he  would  scud  away  with  one  wave  of  the 
tail  into  deeper  water.  Nothing  fears  the  little 
brown  boy.  The  yellow-bird  slants  his  wings, 
almost  touches  the  deep  water  before  him,  and 
then  escapes  away  under  the  bridge  to  the  east 
with  a  glint  of  sunshine  on  his  back ;  the  fish- 
hawk  comes  down  with  a  swoop,  dips  one  wing, 
and,  his  prey  having  darted  under  a  stone,  is 
away  again  over  the  still  hill,  high  soaring  on 
even-poised  pinions,  keeping  an  eye  perhaps 
upon  the  great  eagle  which  is  sweeping  the 
sky  in  widening  circles. 

But  there  is  other  life.  A  wagon  rumbles  over 
the  bridge,  and  the  farmer  and.  his  wife,  jogging 
along,  do  not  know  that  they  have  startled  a  lazy 


UNDER   THE  BRIDGE.  22$ 

boy  into  a  momentary  fancy  that  a  thunder- 
shower  is  coming  up.  John  can  see  as  he  lies 
there  on  a  still  summer  day,  with  the  fishes  and 
the  birds  for  company,  the  road  that  comes  down 
the  left  bank  of  the  river,  a  hot,  sandy,  well-trav- 
elled road,  hidden  from  view  here  and  there  by 
trees  and  bushes.  The  chief  point  of  interest, 
however,  is  an  enormous  sycamore-tree  by  the 
roadside  and  in  front  of  John's  house.  The 
house  is  more  than  a  century  old,  and  its  timbers 
were  hewed  and  squared  by  Captain  Moses  Rice 
(who  lies  in  his  grave  on  the  hillside  above  it), 
in  the  presence  of  the  Red  Man  who  killed  him 
with  arrow  and  tomahawk  some  time  after  his 
house  was  set  in  order.  The  gigantic  tree, 
struck  with  a  sort  of  leprosy,  like  all  its  species, 
appears  much  older,  and  of  course  has  its  tradi- 
tion. They  say  that  it  grew  from  a  green  stake 
which  the  first  land-surveyor  planted  there  for 
one  of  his  points  of  sight.  John  was  reminded 


224  BEING  A  BOY. 

of  it  years  after  when  he  sat  under  the  shade  of 
the  decrepit  lime-tree  in  Freiberg  and  was  told 
that  it  was  originally  a  twig  which  the  breath- 
less and  bloody  messenger  carried  in  his  hand 
when  he  dropped  exhausted  in  the  square  with 
the  word  "  Victory  !  "  on  his  lips,  announcing  thus 
the  result  of  the  glorious  battle  of  Morat,  where 
the  Swiss  in  1476  defeated  Charles  the  Bold. 
Under  the  broad  but  scanty  shade  of  the  great 
button-ball  tree  (as  it  was  called)  stood  an  old 
watering-trough,  with  its  half-decayed  penstock 
and  well-worn  spout  pouring  forever  cold,  spark- 
ling water  into  the  overflowing  trough.  It  is 
fed  by  a  spring  near  by,  and  the  water  is  sweeter 
'  and  colder  than  any  in  the  known  world,  unless 
it  be  the  well  Zem-Zem,  as  generations  of  peo- 
ple and  horses  which  have  drunk  of  it  would 
testify,  if  they  could  come  back.  And  if  they 
could  file  along  this  road  again,  what  a  proces- 
sion there  would  be  riding  down  the  valley ! 


AN  ANTIQUE  PROCESSION.  22$ 

antiquated  vehicles,  rusty  wagons  adorned  with 
the  invariable  buffalo-robe  even  in  the  hottest 
days,  lean  and  long-favored  horses,  frisky  colts, 
drawing  generation  after  generation,  the  sober 
and  pious  saints,  that  passed  this  way  to  meet- 
ing and  to  mill. 

What  a  refreshment  is  that  water-spout !  All 
day  long  there  are  pilgrims  to  it,  and  John 
likes  nothing  better  than  to  watch  them. 
Here  comes  a  gray  horse  drawing  a  buggy 
with  two  men,  —  cattle-buyers,  probably.  Out 
jumps  a  man,  down  goes  the  check-rein. 
What  a  good  draught  the  nag  takes !  Here 
comes  a  long-stepping  trotter  in  a  sulky  ;  man 
in  a  brown  linen  coat  and  wide-awake  hat,  —  dis- 
solute, horsey-looking  man.  They  turn  up,  of 
course.  Ah,  there  is  an  establishment  he 
knows  well ;  a  sorrel  horse  and  an  old  chaise. 
The  sorrel  horse  scents  the  water  afar  off,  and 
begins  to  turn  up  long  before  he  reaches  the 


226  BEING  A   BOY. 

trough,  thrusting  out  his  nose  in  anticipation 
of  the  cool  sensation.  No  check  to  let  down  ; 
he  plunges  his  nose  in  nearly  to  his  eyes  in 
his  haste  to  get  at  it.  Two  maiden  ladies  — 
unmistakably  such,  though  they  appear  neither 
"anxious  nor  aimless"  —  within  the  scoop-top 
smile  benevolently  on  the  sorrel  back.  It  is 
the  deacon's  horse,  a  meeting-going  nag,  with 
a  sedate,  leisurely  jog  as  he  goes ;  and  these 
are  two  of  the  "  salt  of  the  earth,"  —  the  brevet 
rank  of  the  women  who  stand  and  wait,  —  going 
down  to  the  village  store  to  dicker.  There 
come  two  men  in  a  hurry,  horse  driven  up 
smartly  and  pulled  up  short ;  but  as  it  is  rising 
ground,  and  the  horse  does  not  easily  reach 
the  water  with  the  wagon  pulling  back,  the 
nervous  man  in  the  buggy  hitches  forward  on 
his  seat,  as  if  that  would  carry  the  wagon  a 
little  ahead !  Next,  lumber-wagon  with  load 
of  boards  ;  horse  wants  to  turn  up,  and  driver 


CITY  TRAVELLERS.  227 

switches  him  and  cries  "  G'lang,"  and  the 
horse  reluctantly  goes  by,  turning  his  head 
wistfully  towards  the  flowing  spout.  Ah,  here 
comes  an  equipage  strange  to  these  parts,  and 
John  stands  up  to  look  ;  an  elegant  carriage 
and  two  horses ;  trunks  strapped  on  behind ; 
gentleman  and  boy  on  front  seat  and  two 
ladies  on  back  seat,  —  city  people.  The  gen- 
tleman descends,  unchecks  the  horses,  wipes 
his  brow,  takes  a  drink  at  the  spout  and  looks 
around,  evidently  remarking  upon  the  lovely 
view,  as  he  swings  his  handkerchief  in  an  ex- 
planatory manner.  Judicious  travellers.  John 
would  like  to  know  who  they  are.  Perhaps 
they  are  from  Boston,  whence  come  all  the 
wonderfully  painted  pedlers'  wagons  drawn  by 
six  stalwart  horses,  which  the  driver,  using  no 
rein,  controls  with  his  long  whip  and  cheery 
voice.  If  so,  great  is  the  condescension  of 
Boston  ;  and  John  follows  them  with  an  unde- 


228  BEING  A   BOY. 

fined  longing  as  they  drive  away  toward  the 
mountains  of  Zoar.  Here  is  a  footman,  dusty 
and  tired,  who  comes  with  lagging  steps.  He 
stops,  removes  his  hat,  as  he  should  to  such 
a  tree,  puts  his  mouth  to  the  spout,  and  takes 
a  long  pull  at  the  lively  water.  And  then  he 
goes  on,  perhaps  to  Zoar,  perhaps  to  a  worse 
place. 

So  they  come  and  go  all  the  summer  after- 
noon ;  but  the  great  event  of  the  day  is  the 
passing  down  the  valley  of  the  majestic  stage- 
coach, the  vast  yellow-bodied,  rattling  vehicle. 
John  can  hear  a  mile  off  the  shaking  of  chains, 
traces,  and  whiffle-trees,  and  the  creaking  of  its 
leathern  braces,  as  the  great  bulk  swings  along 
piled  high  with  trunks.  It  represents  to  John, 
somehow,  authority,  government,  the  right  of 
way  ;  the  driver  is  an  autocrat,  —  everybody 
must  make  way  for  the  stage-coach.  It  almost 
satisfies  the  imagination,  this  royal  vehicle ;  one 


GYPSIES.  229 

can  go   in    it    to   the   confines  of  the  world, — 
to  Boston  and  to   Albany. 

There  were  other  influences  that  I  dare  say 
contributed  to  the  boy's  education.  I  think 
his  imagination  was  stimulated  by  a  band  of 
gypsies  who  used  to  come  every  summer  and 
pitch  a  tent  on  a  little  roadside  patch  of  green 
turf  by  the  river-bank,  not  far  from  his  house. 
It  was  shaded  by  elms  and  butternut-trees,  and 
a  long  spit  of  sand  and  pebbles  ran  out  from 
it  into  the  brawling  stream.  Probably  they 
were  not  a  very  good  kind  of  gypsy,  although 
the  story  was  that  the  men  drank  and  beat  the 
women.  John  did  n't  know  much  about  drink- 
ing ;  his  experience  of  it  was  confined  to  sweet 
cider  ;  yet  he  had  already  set  himself  up  as  a 
reformer,  and  joined  the  Cold  Water  Band. 
The  object  of  this  Band  was  to  walk  in  a  pro- 
cession under  a  banner  that  declared,  — 

So  here  we  pledge  perpetual  hate 
To  all  that  can  intoxicate ; 


230  BEING  A  BOY. 

and  wear  a  badge  with  this  legend,  and  above 
it  the  device  of  a  well-curb  with  a  long  sweep. 
It  kept  John  and  all  the 
little  boys  and  girls  from 
being  drunkards  till  they 
were  ten  or  eleven  years 
of  age  ;  though  perhaps  a 
few  of  them  died  meantime 
from  eating  loaf-cake  and 
pie  and  drink- 
ing ice-cold 
water  at  the 

celebrations  r 
*»; 

of  the  Band. 
The  gypsy 
camp  had  a 
strange  fascination  for  John,  mingled  of  curiosity 
and  fear.  Nothing  more  alien  could  come  into 
the  New  England  life  than  this  tatterdemalion 
band.  It  was  hardly  credible  that  here  were  actu- 


THE  STRANGE   CAMP. 

ally  people  who  lived  out  doors,  who  slept  in  their 
covered  wagon  or  under  their  tent,  and  cooked  in 
the  open  air  ;  it  was  a  visible  romance  transferred 
from  foreign  lands  and  the  remote  times  of 
the  story-books ;  and  John  took  these  city 
thieves,  who  were  on  their  annual  foray  into 
the  country,  trading  and  stealing  horses  and 
robbing  hen-roosts  and  cornfields,  for  the  mys- 
terious race  who  for  thousands  of  years  have 
done  these  same  things  in  all  lands,  by  right 
of  their  pure  blood  and  ancient  lineage.  John 
was  afraid  to  approach  the  camp  when  any  of 
the  scowling  and  villanous  men  were  lounging 
about,  pipes  in  mouth  ;  but  he  took  more  cour- 
age when  only  women  and  children  were 
visible.  The  swarthy,  black-haired  women  in 
dirty  calico  frocks  were  anything  but  attrac- 
tive, but  they  spoke  softly  to  the  boy,  and  told 
his  fortune,  and  wheedled  him  into  bringing 
them  any  amount  of  cucumbers  and  green 


232 


BEING  A   BOY. 


corn  in  the  course  of  the  season.  In  front  of 
the  tent  were  planted  in  the  ground  three 
poles  that  met  together  at  the  top,  whence  de- 
pended a  kettle.  This  was  the  kitchen,  and  it 


was  sufficient.  The  fuel  for  the  fire  was  the 
drift-wood  of  the  stream.  John  noted  that  it 
did  not  require  to  be  sawed  into  stove-lengths  ; 
and,  in  short,  that  the  "chores"  about  this 


A  BOHEMIAN  MYSTERY.  233 

establishment  were  reduced  to  the  minimum. 
And  an  older  person  than  John  might  envy 
the  free  life  of  these  wanderers,  who  paid 
neither  rent  nor  taxes,  and  yet  enjoyed  all  the 
delights  of  nature.  It  seemed  to  the  boy  that 
affairs  would  go  more  smoothly  in  the  world 
if  everybody  would  live  in  this  simple  man- 
ner. Nor  did  he  then  know,  or  ever  after 
find  out,  why  it  is  that  the  world  only  permits 
wicked  people  to  be  Bohemians. 


XIX. 

A   CONTRAST   TO   THE   NEW-ENGLAND   BOY. 

NE  even- 
ing at  ves- 
pers  in 
Genoa,  at- 
tracted by  a 
burst  of  mu- 
sic from  the 
swinging 
curtain  of 
the  door- 
way, I  en- 
tered a  little  church  much  frequented  by  the 
common  people.  An  unexpected  and  exceed- 
ingly pretty  sight  rewarded  me. 


A  FESTIVAL   OF  TAPERS.  235 

It  was  All  Souls'  Day.  In  Italy  almost  every 
day  is  set  apart  for  some  festival,  or  belongs  to 
some  saint  or  another,  and  I  suppose  that  when 
leap-year  brings  around  the  extra  day,  there  is 
a  saint  ready  to  claim  the  2Qth  of  February. 
Whatever  the  day  was  to  the  elders,  the  evening 
was  devoted  to  the  children.  The  first  thing 
I  noticed  was,  that  the  quaint  old  church  was 
lighted  up  with  innumerable  wax-tapers,  —  an 
uncommon  sight,  for  the  darkness  of  a  Catholic 
church  in  the  evening  is  usually  relieved  only 
by  a  candle  here  and  there,  and  by  a  blazing 
pyramid  of  them  on  the  high  altar.  The  use 
of  gas  is  held  to  be  a  vulgar  thing  all  over 
Europe,  and  especially  unfit  for  a  church  or  an 
aristocratic  palace. 

Then  I  saw  that  each  taper  belonged  to  a 
little  boy  or  girl,  and  the  groups  of  chil- 
dren were  scattered  all  about  the  church. 
There  was  a  group  by  every  side  altar  and 


236  BEING  A  BOY. 

chapel,  all  the  benches  were  occupied  by  knots 
of  them,  and  there  were  so  many  circles  of 
them  seated  on  the  pavement  that  I  could 
with  difficulty  make  my  way  among  them. 
There  were  hundreds  of  children  in  the  church, 
all  dressed  in  their  holiday  apparel,  and  all 
intent  upon  the  illumination,  which  seemed  to 
be  a  private  affair  to  each  one  of  them. 

And  not  much  effect  had  their  tapers  upon 
the  darkness  of  the  vast  vaults  above  them. 
The  tapers  were  little  spiral  coils  of  wax,  which 
the  children  unrolled  as  fast  as  they  burned,  and 
when  they  were  tired  of  holding  them  they 
rested  them  on  the  ground  and  watched  the 
burning.  I  stood  some  time  by  a  group  of  a 
dozen  seated  in  a  corner  of  the  church.  They 
had  massed  all  the  tapers  in  the  centre  and 
formed  a  ring  about  the  spectacle,  sitting  with 
their  legs  straight  out  before  them  and  their 
toes  turned  up.  The  light  shone  full  in  their 


A  RING  OF  CHERUBS.  237 

happy  faces,  and  made  the  group,  enveloped 
otherwise  in  darkness,  like  one  of  Correggio's 
pictures  of  children  or  angels.  Correggio  was  a 
famous  Italian  artist  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
who  painted  cherubs  like  children  who  were 
just  going  to  heaven,  and  children  like  cherubs 
who  had  just  come  out  of  it.  But  then,  he 
had  the  Italian  children  for  models,  and  they 
get  the  knack  of  being  lovely  very  young. 
An  Italian  child  finds  it  as  easy  to  be  pretty 
as  an  American  child  to  be  good. 

One  could  not  but  be  struck  with  the  pa- 
tience these  little  people  exhibited  in  their  occu- 
pation, and  the  enjoyment  they  got  out  of  it. 
There  was  no  noise ;  all  conversed  in  subdued 
whispers  and  behaved  in  the  most  gentle  man- 
ner to  each  other,  especially  to  the  smallest, 
and  there  were  many  of  them  so  small  that 
they  could  only  toddle  about  by  the  most  judi- 
cious exercise  of  their  equilibrium.  I  do  not 


238  BEING  A   BOY. 

say  this  by  way  of  reproof  to  any  other  kind 
of  children. 

These  little  groups,  as  I  have  said,  were 
scattered  all  about  the  church  ;  and  they  made 
with  their  tapers  little  spots  of  light,  which 
looked  in  the  distance  very  much  like  Correg- 
gio's  picture  which  is  at  Dresden,  —  the  Holy 
Family  at  Night,  and  the  light  from  the  Divine 
Child  blazing  in  the  faces  of  all  the  attendants. 
Some  of  the  children  were  infants  in  the 
nurse's  arms,  but  no  one  was  too  small  to 
have  a  taper,  and  to  run  the  risk  of  burning 
its  fingers. 

There  is  nothing  that  a  baby  likes  more 
than  a  lighted  candle,  and  the  church  has  un- 
derstood this  longing  in  human  nature,  and 
found  means  to  gratify  it  by  this  festival  of 
tapers. 

The  groups  do  not  all  remain  long  in  place, 
you  may  imagine ;  there  is  a  good  deal  of  shift- 


THE  HANDSOME  BOY.  239 

ing  about,  and  I  see  little  stragglers  wander- 
ing over  the  church,  like  fairies  lighted  by  fire- 
flies. Occasionally  they  form  a  little  procession 
and  march  from  one  altar  to  another,  their 
lights  twinkling  as  they  go. 

But  all  this  time  there  is  music  pouring  out 
of  the  organ-loft  at  the  end  of  the  church,  and 
flooding  all  its  spaces  with  its  volume.  In 
front  of  the  organ  is  a  choir  of  boys,  led  by 
a  round-faced  and  jolly  monk,  who  rolls  about 
as  he  sings,  and  lets  the  deep  bass  noise  rum- 
ble about  a  long  time  in  his  stomach  before 
he  pours  it  out  of  his  mouth.  I  can  see  the 
faces  of  all  of  them  quite  well,  for  each  singer 
has  a  candle  to  light  his  music-book. 

And  next  to  the  monk  stands  the  boy, — the 
handsomest  boy  in  the  whole  world  probably  at 
this  moment.  I  can  see  now  his  great,  liquid, 
dark  eyes,  and  his  exquisite  face,  and  the  way 
he  tossed  back  his  long  waving  hair  when 


240 


BEING  A  BOY. 


he  struck  into  his  part.  He  resembled  the  por- 
traits of  Raphael,  when  that  artist  was  a  boy ; 
only  I  think  he  looked  better  than  Raphael, 

and  with- 
out trying, 
for  he 
seemed  to 
be  a  spon- 
s^taneous 
sort  of  boy. 
And  how 
that  boy 
did  sing ! 
He  was  the 
soprano  of 
the  choir, 

and  he  had  a  voice  of  heavenly  sweetness. 
When  he  opened  his  mouth  and  tossed  back 
his  head,  he  filled  the  church  with  exquisite 
melody. 


SINGING  LIKE  A   LARK. 


24I 


He  sang  like  a  lark,  or  like  an  angel.  As 
we  never  heard  an  angel  sing,  that  comparison 
is  not  worth  much.  I  have  seen  pictures  of 
angels  singing,  —  there  is  one  by  Jan  and 
Hubert  Van  Eyck  in  the  gallery  at  Berlin,  — 
and  they  open  their  mouths  like  this  boy,  but 
I  can't  say  as  much  for  their  singing.  The 
lark,  which  you  very  likely  never  heard  either, 
—  for  larks  are  as  scarce  in  America  as  an- 
gels,—  is  a  bird  that  springs  up  from  the 
meadow  and  begins  to  sing  as  he  rises  in  a 
spiral  flight,  and  the  higher  he  mounts  the 
sweeter  he  sings,  until  you  think  the  notes  are 
dropping  out  of  heaven  itself,  and  you  hear  him 
when  he  is  gone  from  sight,  and  you  think 
you  hear  him  long  after  all  sound  has  ceased. 

And  yet  this  boy  sang  better  than  a  lark, 
because  he  had  more  notes  and  a  greater  com- 
pass and  more  volume,  although  he  shook  out 
his  voice  in  the  same  gleesome  abundance. 


242  BEING  A   BOY. 

I  am  sorry  that  I  cannot  add  that  this  rav- 
ishingly  beautiful  boy  was  a  good  boy.  He 
was  probably  one  of  the  most  mischievous  boys 
that  was  ever  in  an  organ-loft.  All  the  time 
that  he  was  singing  the  vespers  he  was  sky- 
larking like  an  imp.  While  he  was  pouring 
out  the  most  divine  melody  he  would  take  the 
opportunity  of  kicking  the  shins  of  the  boy 
next  to  him,  and  while  he  was  waiting  for  his 
part  he  would  kick  out  behind  at  any  one 
who  was  incautious  enough  to  approach  him. 
There  never  was  such  a  vicious  boy ;  he  kept 
the  whole  loft  in  a  ferment.  When  the  monk 
rumbled  his  bass  in  his  stomach,  the  boy  cut 
up  monkey-shines  that  set  every  other  boy  into 
a  laugh,  or  he  stirred  up  a  row  that  set  them 
all  at  fisticuffs. 

And  yet  this  boy  was  a  great  favorite.  The 
jolly  monk  loved  him  best  of  all,  and  bore 
with  his  wildest  pranks.  When  he  was  wanted 


SINGING  BY  EAR.  243 

to  sing  his  part  and  was  skylarking  in  the 
rear,  the  fat  monk  took  him  by  the  ear  and 
brought  him  forward  ;  and  when  he  gave  the 
boy's  ear  a  twist,  the  boy  opened  his  lovely 
mouth  and  poured  forth  such  a  flood  of  melo- 
dy as  you  never  heard.  And  he  didn't  mind 
his  notes ;  he  seemed  to  know  his  notes  by 
heart,  and  could  sing  and  look  off  like  a 
nightingale  on  a  bough.  He  knew  his  power, 
that  boy  ;  and  he  stepped  forward  to  his  stand 
when  he  pleased,  certain  that  he  would  be  for- 
given as  soon  as  he  began  to  sing.  And  such 
spirit  and  life  as  he  threw  into  the  perform- 
ance, rollicking  through  the  Vespers  with  a 
perfect  abandon  of  carriage,  as  if  he  could  sing 
himself  out  of  his  skin  if  he  liked. 

While  the  little  angels  down  below  were 
pattering  about  with  their  wax  tapers,  keep- 
ing the  holy  fire  burning,  suddenly  the  organ 
stopped,  the  monk  shut  his  book  with  a  bang, 


244  BEING  A   BOY. 

the  boys  blew  out  the  candles,  and  I  heard  them 
all  tumbling  down  stairs  in  a  gale  of  noise 
and  laughter.  The  beautiful  boy  I  saw  no 
more. 

About  him  plays  the  light  of  tender  memory  ; 
but  were  he  twice  as  lovely,  I  could  never  think 
of  him  as  having  either  the  simple  manliness  or 
the  good  fortune  of  the  New  England  boy. 


Cambridge  :  Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co 


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